


Identity

by JCapasso



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:47:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27885496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCapasso/pseuds/JCapasso
Summary: When Lexi/Audrey comes out of the barn instead of being Audrey with Lexi's memories, she's actually Lexi with Audrey's memories and that changes everything.
Relationships: Duke Crocker/Audrey Parker | Lexie DeWitt, Dwight Hendrickson/Jennifer Mason (Haven), Jess Minnion/Nathan Wuornos
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know that the show and everything spells it Lexie, but I just can't get behind that spelling so she's Lexi to me. If that bothers people I can change it though so let me know.

Lexi was just waking up and her memories were all jumbled up. The bar. The void. Making the jump. But there was more there too. Memories that weren’t her own that she was struggling to place. Suddenly there was someone in front of her. Nathan, the phantom memories provided. Which meant that those memories were real despite how distant they were and how hard to hold on to. “Hi,” she managed to say as Nathan brushed her hair back, hand resting on her cheek, and she shifted uncomfortably, not sure what was going on or what she should do. She looked around as she tried to get her bearings, and the next person she noticed was a tall guy with long hair. Duke, the memories told her. Then she noticed the guns. A lot of them. Surrounding them. She had no idea what they were doing there. What kind of mess she had landed in the middle of, and she was still trying to figure it out when Nathan got up, walked over to Jordan, and took the gun from her. She was as confused as ever, but once he came back and pressed it into her hand and pointed it at his chest, she started to panic. “What are you doing?” she asked with forced calm. 

“The troubles haven’t ended,” Nathan told her. “I know what Howard told you. Killing me is the only way now.”

Lexi saw Nathan look over to Duke and she couldn’t quite place the look that passed between them and then Nathan was kissing her. She let the gun fall as she kissed him back hesitantly. She remembered being Audrey and doing this more than once, but there was just nothing there now, proving to her that Audrey was just the past. She really was Lexi now. Nathan grabbed the gun and put it back to his chest as he begged her to kill him and she knew how she had to play this. “I’m not killing anyone. Certainly not someone I’ve never met before.” Letting them know that she had any memories of Audrey would probably not be a good thing. At least not until she had some time to settle those memories and figure out what was what. “And who is Audrey?” she added the icing on the cake. “My name is Lexi.” 

“Your name is Lexi?!” Nathan asked incredulously.

“Uh, I guess you guys were expecting someone else?” she said as she glanced around, worriedly, not sure what kind of crimp this would put in their plans and what they would do about it. 

Jordan came up and pointed her gun right at Nathan. “Shoot him,” she ordered.

“I’m not shooting anyone…who are you people?” she asked disgustedly.

“Jordan, if she’s not Audrey anymore then her killing Nathan isn’t going to end the troubles,” Duke jumped in, unable to do more than glance at this Lexi chick. Partially because he would need time to come to terms with this new development before he could see her as anyone but Audrey, but mostly just to keep an eye on the gun. “It only works if she loves him.”

That just confused Lexi even more. Or maybe the memories just hadn’t completely settled yet and she was missing something. When Nathan had kissed her, she did remember having feelings for him as Audrey, but love? Not so much. Thankfully she didn’t get long to dwell on it before all hell broke loose and Duke saved the day. She had a flash of memory of other times that he’d done so as he jerked the gun away from Jordan and threw a punch that got the troubled blood on him. As his eyes started to glow, he turned back long enough to yell for Nathan to run. Part of her, probably the Audrey part, wanted to grab a gun and help Duke, but she knew that she couldn’t. It would give her away in a heartbeat. Instead she contented herself with moving to the side, trying to ignore the supercharged Duke throwing people around and giving a distraction for Nathan to get away, and decided to try and figure out who the new girl was. As the only one who wasn’t even vaguely familiar to the phantom memories, it was a sense of normalcy that she desperately needed right now. 

When Lexi heard that commotion that meant that they’d caught Nathan she couldn’t stand back anymore, she ran off after them, Jennifer right behind her, as she grabbed a gun off the ground. When Duke failed to talk them down and they were about to shoot Nathan, she fired a shot into the air. “Hey, listen up you lunatics. Move a muscle, lose your heads.” She noticed a few suspicious looks that soon faded. Probably because of the way she was waving the gun around. Having the memories of knowing how to use it didn’t mean she had the experience. She would figure it out if she had to though. “I know it doesn’t seem like I know how to use this thing, but I do.”

“What do you want, Lexi?” Vince asked.

“Ideally? A stiff drink. And a reason why y’all are trying to blow away cheekbones here,” she said irritated. She shouldn’t be put in this position, but she wasn’t just going to let some innocent and seemingly pretty nice guy get killed for no reason. When Jordan tried to make a move for her, Lexi shot at the ground in front of her. “I know you’re angry honey, but I’m hoping you’re not stupid too.

Duke knew that someone had to defuse this, so he spoke up. “Scuse me, Lexi? Hi. My name’s Duke,” he said carefully. “I would actually prefer that they didn’t shoot cheekbones here either,” he explained. “Now uh…I think I can clear this whole thing up if I can just…talk to this gentleman right over here. The uh…the big one.”

Lexi considered it for a moment, but was unable to ignore the instincts carried over from Audrey that told her to trust Duke and she said a quiet, “okay.” She’d always relied more on her instincts than most people. Lexi couldn’t hear what was said, but apparently whatever Duke said worked. At least partly, because they were hustled back to town and she and Nathan were locked up while a heated argument raged outside. She couldn’t deny that she was scared shitless, but wouldn’t give any of these people the satisfaction of showing it. She tried to make conversation with Nathan to keep her mind off what was going on, but he was more than a little standoffish. Unfortunately, she didn’t get any clues about what was decided as they were dragged out and that was probably the worst part. Not knowing if she should be fighting or not. Seeing Duke where they went was heartening, but it really irritated her when she was left behind at the car and she couldn’t hear what Nathan, Duke, and Vince were talking about.

Duke walked up to Nathan and Vince as Nathan was handed a gun. “Someone tell me what the hell is going on,” Nathan said irritated.

“Duke has a plan,” Vince said cryptically, looking at Duke and clearly intending for him to explain.

“Well, it’s really pretty simple. If Audrey loves you when she kills you, the troubles end right? Same rules should apply if Lexi falls for you,” Duke said, looking at the ground. He hated this with every fiber of his being. He wished that he could do this in Nathan’s place. He would do almost anything to save his friend, and knowing that Audrey…or Lexi…loved him…he could die happy then. It wouldn’t work though. The guard would never accept anything but Nathan’s death right now, and at least this way it wouldn’t be for nothing. 

“You want Lexi to fall in love with me,” Nathan asked incredulously.

“Spend some time with her. Get to know her,” Vince said. “She can help you with this trouble.”

“She’s not even a cop anymore. She’s a bartender,” Nathan pointed out.

“Whatever personality she has, she’s always helped with the troubles. It’s who she is,” Vince explained before turning to Duke. “You make sure this happens. If it doesn’t, the guard won’t just be here for Nathan.”

Duke barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he muttered, “good pep talk.” It wasn’t like it was the first time he’d put his head on the chopping block for his friends and it probably wouldn’t be the last.

“This is your plan,” Nathan scoffed.

“No,” Duke snapped. “This is /your/ plan remember? Just…different girl this time.” It wasn’t like there was another choice. Dead now or dead later were Nathan’s choices and only one way had a chance to not be in vain.

“I’m in love with Audrey,” Nathan said pointedly, looking back at the car, intending to try and point out the difference, only to find her gone. Nathan and Duke both took off towards her when they heard her scream.

Lexi was getting beyond bored and impatient being left at the car and she had no intention of being a ‘good little girl’ and letting the ‘menfolk’ figure out /her/ life, so she did what she had always done. Whatever the hell she wanted to do. She rolled her eyes at their obliviousness and walked off, heading into the building to try and figure out what they were doing there and why. Dude locked in the freezer scared ten years off her life and when the guys came running, she easily made up a lie about the bathroom. One that she was very glad was a lie since if she actually had needed the bathroom that urgently, she wouldn’t anymore. 

As the case progressed, she found herself more than a little bored and wondered how Audrey had actually enjoyed doing this every day. Sure, the figuring out a puzzle part wasn’t /too/ bad and the getting people to talk and finding ways to relate to them she actually liked, but the rest was mind-numbing. At least it gave her a little time while she was spacing out to try and figure out more of the memories and try to put them into some kind of context. If only people would leave her alone and let her do it and quit bugging her every few minutes. 

They finally figured out what was going on, and Lexi knew that as the only person that was immune to the troubles, she would have to be the one to go in. No matter how much it scared her, it had to be done. She’d never let fear control her before and she sure as hell wasn’t about to start now. Not when someone’s life was at risk. She crept down into that creepy basement to try and get the drink ticket out of the kid’s hand, but got cursed herself when her gun got knocked away. It drastically cut down her choices when Tyler came out, still in Duke’s body. She swallowed heavily as the axe went to her throat and Tyler asked, “How well do you know this guy? Is he really worth dying for?”

While part of her knew that she had just met Duke, there was another part of her that had a year and a half of memories of him and knew him like the back of her hand. It was the same with Nathan really, but with the way that Nathan was treating her, it was easier to ignore with him. When the axe was raised, she had a flash of memory from Audrey and she knew what she had to do. There was only one way left to play this. “I’m sorry, Duke,” she said, stepping out of the way. 

When Duke’s eyes started glowing and he started convulsing, Lexi desperately hoped that she’d done the right thing. That she hadn’t just killed Duke anyway. That it would work like she thought it would. When he collapsed, she moved around, “Tyler?” she asked, trying to keep the dread out of her voice, but as soon as Duke looked up at her, she knew that it was him.

“Relax sweetheart. It’s me,” Duke said.

“Do you…remember anything?” Lexi asked.

“All of it,” Duke said hauntedly. “Felt like I was a fly on my own wall the whole time.”

“What just happened?” she asked. “And what was going on with your eyes?”

“My family curse,” Duke admitted. Normally he would have tried harder to keep it under wraps, but he wasn’t so sure that she didn’t already know, and even if she didn’t, it was still Audrey whether she remembered or not. “When I kill a troubled person, I kill their trouble too. When he died, Tyler couldn’t control me anymore. He accidentally ended his own curse.”

“Alright…well that’s good to know,” Lexi sighed in relief, glad that she’d gotten the right impression from that memory flash. “I’ve got a lot to learn here.”

“Yeah,” Duke said, glancing over at the dead body suspiciously. “That was a close one.” He headed out after that. He had some things to think about.

Lexi went back to the station with Nathan and took some time to go through the stuff on her desk. She tried to feel Nathan out on the whole situation between him and Audrey, hoping that it would help her get a better handle on things, but clearly she wasn’t getting any more of an answer than that it was complicated. Once she gave up, she knew that she needed some place to kick back and relax. She wondered if Audrey’s apartment would still be available or if she would have to stay at the inn. Either way, the apartment was above a bar which she desperately needed right now, so she headed that way. Before going inside, she walked around the deck and looked up at the familiar and yet not apartment, not entirely surprised when Duke came out a moment later. “So, I used to live /here/?” she pointed up from the deck as Duke came out the door. “What was I? Broke? I mean…it’s nice and everything. It’s a little nautical.”

“Well I’m glad you like it,” Duke said, trying to decide if he was going to confront her or not. Once he decided, he smirked. “You owe me six months rent,” he joked.

Lexi couldn’t help but laugh at the joke as she shook her head. “I just tried to save your life. Shouldn’t I get the first month free?”

“You know, I’ve been thinking about what happened down in that basement,” Duke said, realizing that she had no intention of coming clean even though they were actually alone now. “You just stepped aside and let Tyler try to take me.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. I just…I…I didn’t want to get stabbed. I was scared,” she lied, looking down at the floor and shifting nervously.

When she tried to walk away, Duke moved in front of her. “See, that’s where I get stuck,” he said, meeting her eyes for the first time. He started to doubt his suspicion when he didn’t see Audrey there, but forged ahead. His point was still valid even if part of it was wrong. “You jumped out of that barn. Went down in that basement. I guess I’m just having a hard time believing that you were scared.” He paused to give her a chance to say something but when she didn’t, he decided that he would have to be blunt. “I think you knew that my curse would kick in and save me.”

Lexi knew that she was probably caught, but she couldn’t just give up that easily. “I really wouldn’t know the first thing about it,” she said as she brushed by him to walk away, twirling her hair.

“But Audrey Parker would,” Duke called after her, seeing her steps falter like she was trying to make a decision. “Isn’t that right…Audrey.”

Lexi froze for a long moment, torn between admitting the truth and keeping up the act. She knew that it was a lost cause though. She had enough of Audrey’s memories sorted to know that Duke was a lot more insightful than he let on. A lot like her in that way. He may have come to the wrong conclusion, but he was at least partially right. “Damnit Duke,” she breathed out as she turned around. “Look, it’s not what you think. I’m Lexi,” she said firmly, getting an eyebrow raise from Duke that said that he didn’t entirely believe her but was still listening. “I just…happen to have at least some of Audrey’s memories. Like…a dream or a fantasy or something,” she shrugged. “I haven’t exactly had a whole lot of time to myself to figure it out,” she huffed the last part. 

Duke sighed sadly as he nodded. That did explain the parts that hadn’t made sense and he got the hint that she needed some time to herself. “Okay. I get that. Well the apartment is yours if you want it and you have an unlimited tab down here.” Audrey had always been good about paying it off quickly, but he knew that Lexi didn’t really have anything at the moment so wasn’t worried about it. “And…for what it’s worth…I am sorry about this whole mess you got thrown into.” 

Lexi gave him an apologetic smile, feeling a little bad for getting testy with him. “Thank you, Duke. From what little I have processed of Audrey’s memories already, you meant a lot to her and she really appreciated everything you did for her.” 

“Thanks,” Duke said with a sad smile as he reached out to give her shoulder a squeeze. “And if you need anything, I live right over there on the boat,” he pointed out the Cape Rouge. “You’re always welcome. Whether you’re Lexi or Audrey,” he chuckled. 

She just nodded and turned to head inside for the bar. She had no idea if Audrey had any booze upstairs and she desperately needed some. She didn’t stay long though since there were far too many people who apparently knew her and she couldn’t get any peace for all the ‘welcome back’ she kept getting, so she retreated back upstairs to look around Audrey’s apartment. While the décor was okay, the clothes were awful. She wondered if anyone would mind her using Audrey’s bank accounts and if there was even enough there to get better clothes. That was a problem for another time though. Right now she just needed to get her head on straight and she spent most of the next few days meditating.


	2. Chapter 2

There was an interruption to her meditation the next day about midmorning with a knock on her door and she opened it to find the girl she’d met in the field. “Hey…Jennifer right?” Lexi asked as she stepped aside to let her in. 

“Yeah, hi. I’m sorry. I know Duke said you wanted some time alone to process and all, but I kinda left my book up here when I left yesterday and...you did know I was staying here while you were gone right? Not like a permanent thing and I didn’t mess with any of your stuff, just…while I didn’t know where I was gonna stay or even /if/ I was gonna stay…” Lexi laughed and waved a hand to get her attention and Jennifer stopped babbling. “Sorry,” she muttered sheepishly. 

“S’okay,” Lexi shrugged amusedly. “You remind me of an old friend of mine. But no, I don’t care that you stayed here. Hell, I feel like an intruder here myself. None of this stuff is actually /mine/, you know?” 

“Yeah, I guess that’s probably pretty rough,” Jennifer said sympathetically as she moved over to the table to grab the book she left. “I should probably go…”

“You don’t have to,” Lexi told her. 

“I don’t want to interrupt your processing time,” Jennifer said hesitantly biting her lip. She did want to make friends. It had been a while since she’d had a good girl friend. She just didn’t want to intrude. 

“No, it’s fine. It’s…easier to be around you since I don’t have any crazy not me memories of you floating around in my head, you know?” Lexi told her. “I wouldn’t mind some company for a little while.” 

“Yeah, okay, if you’re sure,” Jennifer agreed and went to sit on the couch. 

“So where are you staying now?” Lexi asked her, feeling bad that she’d been kicked out when she got back. 

“Oh, Duke offered to let me stay in the spare room on his boat. It’s pretty cool. I’ve never lived on a boat before.”

“Me either. It does sound like it would be pretty cool,” Lexi told her. “If there was another room up here, I wouldn’t mind a roommate, but sharing one room would make it kinda hard for either of us to bring guys home and all,” she laughed. 

“Yeah, I can see where that would be awkward,” Jennifer chuckled. “Not that it would be any less so for me to take them to the boat. Unless of course it was Duke I was hooking up with.”

“Do you want to hook up with Duke?” Lexi asked curiously, turning to look at her and leaning in for the good gossip. 

“I don’t know,” Jennifer sighed. “He’s…complicated.”

“Most guys are,” Lexi pointed out amusedly. 

“Yeah, but Duke is even more than most. Plus…well…we kinda kissed…but not really. It was when he was being possessed which just makes it weird because it wasn’t really him, but I didn’t know that and kissed him back so now he knows that and it just…”

“Got awkward,” Lexi guessed. 

“Not really,” Jennifer said as though she was confused about it herself. “It was just like, he acknowledged it and then moved on and hasn’t treated me any differently since, and I just wished he would give me some sort of clue what he was thinking or what he wanted or just…anything really.” She was more than glad to have another girl to confide all this in and hopefully get some decent advice. 

“Well I can’t say as I know Duke all that well myself, but I have processed at least some of Audrey’s memories of him,” Lexi explained. “If I had to guess, I’d have to say that he doesn’t really know what to think of it himself. If I were you I’d just leave it be. Since you kissed him back thinking it was really him, he knows you’re interested and once he gets his head on straight he’ll either do something about it or not.” 

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Jennifer agreed. “In the meantime, he’s still a really great friend, so I won’t let things get weird between us.” She settled that in her mind before changing the subject. “So how does that work? Having memories that aren’t your own, I mean. I bet it gets confusing.”

“You have no idea,” Lexi chuckled wryly. The two of them spent a few hours chatting and getting to know each other and by the time Jennifer left after lunch, they had the start of a close friendship. Lexi even offered to let her have at any of Audrey’s clothes she wanted after she sorted through the few things she might want to keep. For her part, Jennifer considered the idea of asking Duke if he’d be willing to add another room upstairs if she decided to stay in Haven long-term. 

Lexi spend the rest of Saturday and Sunday alone working her way through the memories, but Monday morning, she had just woken up when there was a knock at her door. She let Duke in who offered, “Coffee?” holding out one of the two cups he was carrying. 

“Please,” she said relieved, as she took it, sitting down at the table. She curled up her nose when she saw it. “I don’t like milk.”

“It’s not milk,” Duke said amusedly, motioning for her to just drink it. He was relatively certain about his guess this time, unlike the first time he’d tried to make Audrey coffee after he’d saved her life. 

“Mmm. Bailey’s,” she sighed happily as she took a sip. She could remember from Audrey him bringing her coffee every so often, but hadn’t quite expected the same treatment. “So what brings you here?” 

“I know you’re supposed to be starting work today and thought you might could use a little fortification and maybe even a pep talk,” Duke shrugged as he sat down and leaned back lazily in the chair. Mostly he wanted to know if he was supposed to continue keeping the memory thing a secret or not. While she was trying to figure it out, that was a given, but not so much now. 

“Fortification, always. Pep talk, not so much,” she said with a mix of amusement and irritation. 

“So let me ask you a question. You land in that field and realize that you have the memories of two people. I can’t imagine how insane that must have felt, but…you decide not to tell anyone? To keep pretending? Why?” Duke asked her curiously. 

“Well for one thing, like you said, I felt like I was going insane. By the time I figured out what was going on, I realized that they expected me to be Audrey and if they knew that I remembered her…they would push it even more. I don’t have any intention of becoming a slave to anyone’s expectations,” she said firmly. 

“But you’re okay with me knowing,” Duke half asked curiously. 

“I’ve sorted through enough of Audrey’s memories to know that if anyone can understand that it’s you,” she shrugged. “It’s bad enough that I’m not being given a choice on my job, but I can’t handle being constantly prodded to be someone I’m not, you know?” 

Duke nodded thoughtfully as he considered her position. Right now, they were treating her like Lexi for the most part, and just trying to get Lexi to fall for Nathan, but if they knew that she remembered Audrey, they wouldn’t stop trying to bring Audrey back to the forefront. “Yeah. You’re right about me understanding. And I’ll keep your secret. But being a cop isn’t so bad. Audrey enjoyed it.”

“I’m not Audrey,” Lexi snapped. “Do you think Audrey would have enjoyed being an army nurse like Sarah was? Or a hippie drifter like Lucy?” 

Duke winced and shook his head. “No. Probably not.”

“The only difference here is that unlike Sarah and Lucy, I remember Audrey. That still doesn’t make me her.” 

“You’re right. I know,” Duke said as he held up his hands in surrender. “I was just trying to find a bright side is all.” 

Lexi huffed, but accepted that explanation. “I’m a bartender. Not a cop. Hell, I’ve spent half my life running from cops for crying out loud.” 

Duke snorted a laugh. “I can relate. And now I end up working with them more often than not. If you ever need any coping tips…”

“I might just take you up on that,” Lexi couldn’t help but laugh. 

“So how much did you actually get from Audrey?” Duke asked curiously. 

“All of her implanted memories are fuzzy at best, but everything once she actually came into this world is clear as day. I can remember everything, even the feelings and thoughts, but not like they’re mine, you know? Almost like watching a movie. It seems like there are some aspects of personality that can’t be changed with different people, but other than that I’ve clearly gotten some skills since I’ve never really had anything to do with guns before but apparently can now handle them pretty well, but that’s about it.” 

“So you remember everything she did about me and Nathan and everyone else, including how she felt, but you don’t feel it yourself?” he asked to confirm. 

“Exactly. Like I remember her kissing Nathan and what she felt before she left, but when he kissed me back there in that field, there was nothing. I remember her kissing you in Colorado and how she felt, but that doesn’t exactly carry over either. I mean, I get that I can trust you, and I know you pretty well and all, but that’s about it.” 

Duke ignored the comment about Colorado. At least for now. He had always had questions about that and it would be easier to ask Lexi than it would have been to ask Audrey, but he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know. Instead he focused on the rest. “It must be weird to remember loving Nathan so much and having to work with him all the time when you don’t feel anything for him now.”

Lexi rolled her eyes amusedly. “Audrey never loved Nathan. I mean, she cared about him, yeah, and maybe it could have turned into more eventually, but she didn’t love him.”

“Yeah, do me a favor. If Nathan ever figures out that you remember all that…lie to him,” Duke asked her. He didn’t want to know what it would do to Nathan to know that. 

“I plan on it,” she chuckled. She’d had plenty of experience with obsessed men and knew that breaking their delusions was easier said than done. Sometimes it was necessary, but it wasn’t here. Audrey was gone and wasn’t coming back. Let him mourn her thinking that she loved him as much as he thought he did her. He could use that closure. And speaking of closure… “She got it you know.” 

“Got what?” Duke asked confused. 

“Why you pushed her away in Colorado. How, even if she hadn’t been about to disappear, you two could never have worked, no matter how much she loved you.”

“She…what?” Duke’s eyes widened. 

“You didn’t know?” Lexi asked incredulously. “Honey, I’ve seen more than my fair share of clueless guys over the years, but honestly…she was about as obvious as a neon sign.” 

Duke swallowed heavily as he tried to wrap his head around that and make it fit everything he’d seen from her. “But…she knew it could never work?” he asked, looking for something to get him back on solid ground. 

“She was a cop. You’re a criminal. Not a bad kind of criminal, which was why she still fell in love with you, but still…she knew that being with you would mean having to turn a blind eye to a lot of things and reconciling that with her morals wouldn’t have been easy and she would have risked losing herself along the way. Or risk you losing yourself or even both.” 

Duke nodded slowly as that made it easier for him understand. “So the same conclusion I came to then,” he admitted. 

“See, you’re smarter than you think,” she smirked. 

Their conversation was interrupted by Nathan driving up. When Duke heard the knock on the door, he called out, “In here.”

Nathan came around the corner with a look at Duke before focusing on Lexi. “Hey…uh…Lexi. I brought coffee. I…don’t know what you like so um…”

“Spiked,” Audrey said, tapping her cup, the one that Duke had brought her. “I like it spiked.”

“Right. Yeah. At ten am,” Nathan said, trying and mostly succeeding at keeping the judgement out of his voice as he shot a dirty look at Duke who was leaning nonchalantly against the counter.

Seeing that Nathan was apparently going to be making an effort to get close to her now made Lexi glad that she actually had an excuse to avoid working with him today. She wasn’t sure how much of him she could take. She knew that she would have to suck it up eventually if she couldn’t find a way out of it, but at least it wouldn’t have to be today. She really did need to get all the paperwork filled out so she could start getting paid. Being forced to be a cop was bad enough, but she could at least get paid for it. 

Duke jumped in to help Nathan and watch his back which made Lexi feel a little better about ditching and her mind had a tendency to wander over the course of the day. She hadn’t been entirely truthful with Duke. She felt the same draw to him that Audrey had from the start, and she knew him just as well as Audrey had. She wasn’t in love with him like Audrey had been, not having had many of her own interactions with him, but she knew that it wouldn’t take much. She wondered if the deeper personality that couldn’t be altered was the part that gravitated towards Duke and she didn’t have the same issues that Audrey had. She had no problem with criminal activities, having had more than a few of those herself. Not to Duke’s degree, but she’d been known to steal and cheat people when necessary. She’d been a runaway more than once until it finally stuck when she was sixteen. They even had similar masks with the whole pretending to be selfish bastards despite how deeply they actually cared. No, it wouldn’t take much at all for Duke Crocker to worm his way into her heart. 

Nathan, on the other hand, held next to no appeal for her. He was far too straight-laced and judgmental. Not to mention brooding, standoffish, with no sense of humor, good or bad, to speak of. No, the guard’s hopes for her to fall for Nathan were never going to happen. She wasn’t about to put Duke in the line of fire by letting on about their potential though. No, she would find a way out of this…maybe even convince Duke to skip town with her if their watchers managed to let their guard down enough to give her a chance. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to help with the troubles. She did. Whether it was an implanted desire or not, she felt like it was her purpose in life. She had learned a long time ago that sometimes cutting and running was the best policy though, no matter what you were leaving behind. And people trying to run her life and force her to hurt people she cared about was /not/ something she wanted to stick around for. 

Later that day, Lexi did slip up though. At least a little bit. “Did you just call Tatum, Tater?” Nathan asked suspiciously. She just ignored it and kept on talking about the case, trying to make him forget about it, but ended up showing a little too much knowledge of the troubles and how they worked. “That’s the kind of thing that starts a trouble?” Nathan asked with wide eyes.

“From what I understand, yeah,” Lexi shrugged, trying to play it off. 

“Audrey?” Nathan asked hopefully as he scrutinized her, looking for some sign of Audrey in her. 

“No,” she shook her head. “I’m Lexi.”

“No, Lexi wouldn’t know to call Tatum, Tater. Lexi wouldn’t be so good at this,” Nathan argued. 

“Okay, look,” she sighed. “I have Audrey’s memories okay? But that doesn’t make me her. I’m still Lexi.”

“But if Audrey’s still in there somewhere…” Nathan started to argue before Duke came back and interrupted them. 

“We don’t have time for this,” he said firmly. 

“You knew,” Nathan accused him. 

“I figured it out,” Duke huffed. Apparently they were making time. 

“When?” 

“The first day,” Duke admitted. 

“And you didn’t tell me? After everything?” 

“It wasn’t my secret to tell.” 

“Look, if you want to spend your last few minutes arguing, then fine, but I’m gonna go find this guy and get him to chill,” Lexi snapped as she brushed by them out the door. 

When Duke followed her, Nathan had no choice but to admit that she had a point and rush after them. Getting ambushed by Jordan definitely put a crimp in their plans, but Nathan realized that if Audrey really was in there, it was worth a shot. He turned his gun around to hand it to her. “If Audrey’s still in there…if you remember loving me…maybe it’ll still work. Maybe we can still end the troubles. Forever.” 

Lexi walked over to him, grabbed the gun and threw it to the side. “It’s bad enough you people are forcing me into a job I don’t want,” she snapped at both Nathan and Jordan. “You’re not going to force me to be a killer too. I. Am. Not. Audrey! It. Won’t. Work.” She moved off and started calling for Paul. 

Duke had a moment to hope that they were actually in the clear and that Lexi would manage to pull this off before the door opened and Wade came in asking where the troubled guy was. When Jordan told him to leave and clearly wasn’t surprised to see him, Duke quickly figured out what was going on and gave his brother a look of betrayal. “You’re helping her?” 

“Actually she’s helping me,” Wade told him. “Showing me the Crocker family secret.”

“Wade…you don’t want that,” Duke tried to warn him. 

“Yes, I do,” Wade assured him. Just because the Crocker side of the family threw him away didn’t mean that he didn’t deserve to be a part of it.

“Wade, things have changed,” Jordan tried to undo her mistake. 

“Things have changed?” Wade asked incredulously. “Troubled people giving me power, that’s changed?” 

Lexi came back, still looking for Paul and managed to get Jordan talked down in her own adorably snarky way, giving Duke a chance to get the gun from her and turn his attention fully to his brother just as Lexi called out that she found Paul. Duke stepped in front of Wade with a challenging, “Where you going?” 

“To get some of his blood. To get what you’ve had along along,” Wade said coldly. 

“No. You’re not,” Duke said firmly, making it clear that he wasn’t moving an inch. 

“Damn you, Duke,” Wade whispered harshly. 

“Yeah, I think that happened a long time ago,” Duke said wryly. When he was the one left in Haven with their serial killer father. When his curse activated. When he was forced to use it for the first time. He’d been damned many times over. “I am trying to protect you, Wade,” he tried to reason with his brother, but Wade just turned and walked out. Duke was torn between going after him and helping with the trouble, but the groan from Paul as he woke up decided him and he turned all of his attention towards fixing this first. Then he could talk to his brother. Even if it meant coming clean completely. 

Lexi interrupted Paul’s long rant. They didn’t have time for this or to be delicate like Audrey. This was a time for hard blunt truths which just happened to be her specialty. “Listen, you’re troubled.” 

“What?” 

“You keep putting a countdown clock on people. When it counts down to zero, they die. Nathan here has two minutes left.”

“And if you keep that clock running then she has to kill him and we’re all cured!” Jordan jumped in. 

“Shut up, Jordan!” Duke snapped. 

“No more troubles!” She kept going. 

“Do you /want/ to get shot?” Duke threatened, and Nathan called him down. 

Lexi just ignored them and kept trying to get through to Paul. “You’ve been putting a countdown clock on anyone who’s slowing you down, but why? Slowing you down for what? You said you were robbed but I don’t see anything missing. What did they take?” She ran through the entire list of possibilities as quickly as possible, hoping that something would get some kind of reaction from him. 

“A bracelet. I was gonna give it as a birthday present…today,” he admitted. 

“Was it for her? Is that your girlfriend?” she asked pointing to the picture on his computer screen. 

“No, she’s…just a friend.”

“But you want her to be more,” Duke jumped in. He wasn’t sure if Lexi had picked up on that yet, but they didn’t have time for her to figure it out if she hadn’t. 

“That’s it,” Lexi agreed with a grateful nod to Duke. “Honey, I’ve seen this a thousand times. You need to call her. Worst she can do is say no.” 

“No, I-I-I couldn’t,” Paul shook his head nervously. 

Duke reached over the counter and grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him halfway over. “Call her now,” he ordered. 

“Be honest. Tell her how you feel,” Lexi coaxed as she reached over and smacked Duke’s hand to make him let go. Paul finally took the phone and started dialing as Nathan tried again to hand her his gun, but she just shoved him away and ignored him. “Just ask her to coffee.” 

They all breathed a sigh of relief…except for Jordan of course…when it was over and Nathan was still alive. That relief didn’t last long though as Wade walked in and intercepted Paul at the door with a knife to the gut activating his curse. Lexi gasped in shock as she rushed to his side to try and stop the bleeding. Duke stood there in shock as Nathan raised his gun to Wade and Jordan slipped out the door promising to call an ambulance. 

Jordan felt horrible for what she’d caused. The guard had been so worried about Crockers since the beginning, but Duke had proven that he wasn’t a threat. Wade was clearly different though. He didn’t hesitate to try and kill the troubled guy for no reason. His trouble was already under control. He just wanted the power. She’d gotten complacent when she realized that Duke could control the curse and now she’d unleashed the monster they’d feared from the start. 

When Nathan ordered Wade to drop the knife, that jolted Duke out of his shock and he rushed towards his brother, hands fisting in the front of his shirt. “Damnit Wade. You shouldn’t have done that.”

“You’re not the only special Crocker anymore,” Wade smirked at him. 

“That was stupid!” Duke snapped angrily. 

“Why? Because now I can end the troubles too?” Wade taunted as he knocked Duke’s arms away from him and turned to leave. Duke wanted to go after him, but was distracted by keeping Nathan from arresting him and by the time that was done, Wade was gone. That didn’t stop him from looking though.


	3. Chapter 3

Lexi and Nathan headed back to the station and Lexi looked disgustedly at the mounds of paperwork she had to do now and sat down to get started. The quicker she finished the quicker she could go get a drink, and she had some shopping to do too. That thought lasted until Nathan sat down and said a gently, “Audrey?”

Lexi huffed and slammed the folder she was working on closed. “Not Audrey,” she snapped. 

“You’re mad at me,” Nathan realized. He was hoping that treating her like Audrey might bring Audrey back to the surface. 

“No shit sherlock, what gave you that idea?” Lexi rolled her eyes. 

“Can we talk about it?” he asked hopefully. 

“Nope. Not getting into this crap tonight,” she told him as she dumped the entire stack of paperwork on his desk. What were they going to do? Fire her? “I gots shit to do. Starting with updating this awful wardrobe. And then I need a drink.” She told him as she turned and walked out, leaving a gob smacked Nathan sitting at his desk, wondering if he should go after her or not before deciding to play it safe. 

Lexi knew that Audrey didn’t have a lot of money in her account. She’d checked. Which meant a trip to the thrift store instead of anything nice. Not like it would be the first time Lexi shopped at the thrift store, nor would it probably be the last. She called Jennifer to see if she wanted to join her for a girl’s shopping night and Jennifer met her about twenty minutes later at the thrift store. At least the apartment was stocked on food, but then they hit the liquor store and got a varied selection that costed about four times as much as the clothes, but clearly alcohol was the priority if she was expected to deal with all this crap. 

The next night, Duke walked into the Gull looking for his brother. Couldn’t get rid of him before but now when he actually /wanted/ to find him, he was nowhere to be found. He soon noticed Lexi behind the bar and huffed a laugh as he headed over. “Now, see…I’m relatively sure I don’t remember hiring you,” he joked as he sat next to Jennifer. 

Lexi twirled a bottle in her hand before pouring it into the drink she was making as she responded. “They say the memory’s the first thing to go.” 

“Where’s Amy?” Duke shook his head with a laugh. 

“Taking a break,” Lexi told him. “Family emergency or something.” 

“Uh-huh. I’m sure,” Duke rolled his eyes. 

“What are you up to?” Lexi changed the subject as she slid that drink down the counter to the person who ordered it and started the next. This one for Duke. He looked like he needed it. 

“Just trying to track down Wade. He’s been dodging me,” Duke sighed wearily. 

“Well if you need any help, just let me know. I can always use the cop doohickeys to track him down and we can do an intervention or something. Whatever,” she offered. 

“An intervention?” Duke snorted. 

“Yeah, you said the rush could be pretty addictive so it fits I guess,” she shrugged. “I’ve had to sit through about a dozen of them, so I know how they work.” 

“And did they work in your case?” he asked amusedly. 

“Sometimes. A little bit. Not usually though,” she admitted as she set a drink in front of him. 

“What’s this?” he asked curiously picking it up to sniff it. 

“Just drink it. You’ll like it,” she assured him with a smirk. 

“She’s good,” Jennifer chimed in. “Made me something I’d never heard of before but it was great.” 

Duke gave her a skeptical look before taking a tentative sip. He tilted his head to the side before nodding in satisfaction. “Okay. It’s good.”

“It’s a cinnamon maple whiskey sour,” she told him. 

“Teach Amy how to make this?” he asked hopefully. 

“Teach me how to make what…Duke!” she realized who it was the Lexi was talking to as she walked up. “I…um…”

“Yeah, I know. Family emergency,” Duke let the lie slide. Lexi looked like she was having fun, so it hardly mattered to him. Long as the job got done. He tossed back the rest of the drink and gave them all a playful salute before heading back out. 

Lexi managed to spend a few days putting in her time at the station while still managing to avoid Nathan as much as possible. It wasn’t really that hard. She’d come to the conclusion that she wasn’t about to put in the effort of doing the stupid paperwork. She didn’t want the job anyway. That meant that when they were at the station she was out mingling with everyone else and leaving him to it. Since it was a slow few days, the only calls they had were minor enough for her to beg off of since ‘he couldn’t handle it alone and it wasn’t a trouble thing’. She lit out right at quitting time and then spent the rest of the evening at the Gull, even taking over the bar a couple times, usually with Jennifer hanging with her. Lexi made a deal with the bartender that she could keep the paycheck, but Lexi got the tips when she was taking her ‘unauthorized’ breaks.

Nathan put up with that for a few days before he had enough. Once he finished up for the night, later than usual since he didn’t have any help, he headed for the Gull. When she didn’t answer the door upstairs, he went down to the bar and quickly noticed her behind the bar serving people. “Well it looks like there’s a job you’ll actually do,” he said irritated as he walked up. 

“Because /I/ am Lexi. A bartender. /Not/ Audrey. A cop,” she said for what seemed like the hundredth time. She was getting so sick of him trying to treat her like Audrey and giving her those judgmental disappointed looks when she failed to live up to that. She’d gotten enough of those looks from the different foster families she’d been with, and the social workers, and even a lot of her bosses. 

“We need to talk,” Nathan said seriously. He couldn’t keep going on like this. Something had to give. 

“Fine. Let me just grab Amy to take over,” she huffed, realizing that she wasn’t going to be able to put this off any longer. 

Once Amy was back, Lexi hopped over the bar and went to follow Nathan out. “Since when do you work at the Gull anyway?” he asked incredulously. He would have thought that Duke would mention hiring her, even if he would do something so stupid with the guard breathing down their necks. 

“I don’t. Technically. I just jump in when I feel like it,” she shrugged. “Sometimes I need a break from pretending to be something I’m not.” 

“That’s the thing,” Nathan said as she opened the apartment door and they went inside. “Who you are is Audrey, and it’s like you’re not even trying to get that back.” 

“No. You are not listening,” she snapped. “I. Am. Lexi. For the last time. Yes, I have Audrey’s memories, but I’m not her. Her memories are just in the background, like a dream or something.”

“Then you can bring them to the foreground. Get back to who you really are,” Nathan tried to argue. 

“Who am I really, Nathan?” she asked impatiently. “Huh? Am I really Audrey Parker? FBI agent? No, we met her already if you remember. Maybe I’m Lucy Ripley? Or Sarah Vernon? Or any of a hundred personalities before that? You sure didn’t have a problem with me being Sarah, now did you?” 

“Oh so this is about Sarah now?!” Nathan asked incredulously. “I’m not going to apologize for what happened.”

“And I’m not asking you to! God!” she threw up her hands. “You’re still not getting it. Listen…who I /really am/ is a matter of interpretation. I was Audrey Parker once. Just like I was Lucy and Sarah and who the hell even knows who else. But that’s not who I am now.” 

“But you don’t remember Lucy and Sarah,” he pointed out. 

“Which is the only difference,” Lexi snapped. “Having her memories don’t make mine any less real. It doesn’t make ME any less real. And you’re standing here asking me to give up everything I am and become someone else just because you liked her better.” 

“But if you have her memories, then maybe that’s who you’re supposed to be…”

“I have her memories because YOU fucked up!” Lexi yelled, losing her temper completely. “You went and killed the barn for your own selfish ass reasons and it spit me out before her memories could be erased. That’s it. There’s no grand plan that we’re not in on. Just a selfish little prick who can’t accept the consequences of his actions. Audrey is /gone/! Get over it. I am not her and I never will be. Audrey died the moment she stepped into that barn and then you went and killed your son too because you couldn’t accept that and I am /sick and tired/ of being made to feel like shit because I’m not who you want. Boohoo! I am Lexi. Deal with it or fuck off.”

Nathan just turned and stormed out, running into Duke on the stairs. “What are you doing here?” he asked heatedly, still pissed about Lexi. 

“I heard yelling so I came to check on Lexi,” Duke said carefully, trying to figure out what he’d just stepped in. 

“Why am I not surprised that /you’re/ encouraging this whole Lexi persona,” Nathan scoffed. “It’s everything you want right? Audrey without the whole law and order thing that separates you.” 

Duke couldn’t help but punch Nathan, which was really a bad idea since he split Nathan’s lip and ended up activating his trouble, but at least it gave him the strength to drag Nathan the rest of the way down the stairs and shove him onto a bench. He barely managed to hold back the rush of bloodlust enough not to do more than that, but took a step away long enough for it to fade before turning back to Nathan. “She is not Audrey. Nor is she a replacement in any way /for/ Audrey. She is an entirely different person. Just like Lucy was. And Sarah was. And treating her like Audrey and pushing your feelings for Audrey on her…and implying the same about /my/ feelings for Audrey…is an insult both to Lexi /and/ to Audrey.” 

“How can you just accept it like that? You don’t even care if we can bring Audrey back to the surface?” Nathan asked incredulously. 

“Audrey is gone, Nathan. Lexi says that the memories she has of Audrey don’t even feel real. That they’re more like a movie that plays in her head. There’s no bringing her back from that. Not to mention bringing her back would mean killing /Lexi/ who, despite what you want to believe, is still a real person with her own mind who doesn’t really want to die, and you can’t really blame her for that,” Duke pointed out. “If Audrey had a twin that came to town and, since twins generally do everything together, she shared most of her sister’s memories. Would you still be treating her that way? Trying to make her be more like her sister so you didn’t have to lose her?” 

“No, of course not,” Nathan said disgustedly. “But that’s different.”

“No, It’s really not,” Duke shook his head. “Do you know that she doesn’t even have Audrey’s memories of before she got to Haven? The implanted ones? From her point of view, she has her entire lifetime of memories, and only a year and a half of memories from some stranger.” 

“She…didn’t tell me that,” Nathan said thoughtfully, trying to actually see it from Lexi’s view. 

“Did you even ask? Or did you hear that she remembered Audrey and immediately barrel ahead and not care about anything else?” Duke asked. “She was yanked out of the barn so abruptly that she never even had a cover story or any kind of preparation for ending up in this mess. She knows that everything she is is just as fake as everything Audrey was, but she’s still struggling to hold onto whatever parts of herself that she can. And given the fact that she’s being forced by the guard to step into Audrey’s shoes every day…which she does for no other reason than to keep you alive by the way…it’s not exactly easy for her. You could try having a little bit of compassion for what she’s going through.” 

“Audrey wasn’t fake,” Nathan protested. 

“And neither is Lexi,” Duke pointed out. “But that doesn’t change the fact that both of them came here with nothing but implanted memories of someone else, and unlike Audrey did at first, Lexi knows it. But it doesn’t make it any less real to her any more than knowing made Audrey any less real.” 

Nathan sighed and nodded as he finally started to get it. “I’ve been an ass.”

“Yeah. You have,” Duke said bluntly. 

“I should go apologize…” he started to get up only for Duke to grab his arm and stop him. 

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Duke told him. “Give her the night to cool off and calm down. You can apologize tomorrow.” 

Nathan hesitated a moment before nodding again. “Yeah, okay. If you think that’s best.” Duke was much better with people than he was. Especially Lexi as he’d proven tonight. 

“I do think that’s best. Plus you need some time to process all this and figure out where you go from here. What exactly you want from her and what kind of relationship you expect to have with /Lexi/.” 

Nathan huffed. “At this point I’d just settle for some help with work.” 

“I’m sure if you actually make an effort with her, she’d be willing to meet you halfway,” Duke told him. “You can’t expect her to actually jump into the job when doing so would just make you treat her even worse.” 

“Yeah…that’s pretty good advice,” Nathan admitted as he turned to leave. Duke gave a heavy sigh as he turned back towards the Rouge, not noticing Lexi standing on the balcony having heard every word they said. 

Once Nathan stormed out, Lexi gave it a minute before following him, intending to return to the bar, but she stopped short at the voices just in time to hear Nathan accuse Duke of seeing her as a more compatible version of Audrey and she had no shame whatsoever in stopping to listen. Partially because continuing her course would take her right past them and she wanted to avoid that, but mostly because she wanted an answer to that question too. She needed to know if she should rule out any possibility of having something with Duke or not and hearing his answer gave her hope. Hearing everything else he said just started her down the road of actually falling in love with him though and she definitely couldn’t deal with that right now. For one thing, she was still too pissed about the fight with Nathan, even if he did know better now. Not to mention, her life as a whole was a complete clusterfuck right now. 

Audrey changed her mind about heading down to the bar and just went back inside to hit her own alcohol stash and it wasn’t long before there was a knock at her door. She hoped that it wasn’t Nathan and wasn’t sure she could handle sweet, understanding Duke tonight either so she pulled back the curtain before opening it and sighed with relief when she saw Jennifer. Once she let Jennifer in and poured her a drink too, she plopped back on the couch and leaned her head back tiredly. “Duke mentioned a fight with you and Nathan. I thought you could use a friend,” Jennifer told her. 

“You thought right,” she said with a weary smile. “Did he tell you what the fight was about?” 

“No, but I’m pretty sure I can guess,” Jennifer chuckled. She’d heard enough rants from Lexi on the subject this week. When Lexi didn’t correct her, she asked, “You okay?” 

“You know…you’d think I’d be used to not being wanted. People trying to make me something I’m not. Change me to fit their own ideals…”

“But it never gets easier,” Jennifer said knowingly wrapping an arm around Audrey’s shoulders comfortingly. 

Lexi huffed and leaned her head on Jennifer’s shoulder, taking the comfort only a best friend could offer. “Not really, no. But this time it’s worse too and I don’t even get why.”

“Because you have Audrey’s memories of Nathan being a good guy and being supportive and kind, but he’s not like that with you,” Jennifer guessed. 

“Yeah. That’s probably it,” Lexi agreed. 

“If it helps, I think he’ll be better once he gets his bearings. He’s just having trouble adjusting is all and the fact that the guard is forcing you to do Audrey’s job, use her desk, spend so much time with him and not even giving him the space to come to terms with it isn’t helping,” Jennifer told her. 

“Don’t tell Duke, but I heard him ripping Nathan a new one,” Lexi admitted. “Hopefully that gets through to him.” 

“Hopefully. If not, just let me know if you need me to set Duke on him again,” Jennifer chuckled, pulling a laugh from Lexi. “Duke sees you as your own person in case you were wondering. And of course since I never knew Audrey…”

“Yeah, I got that much from what Duke told Nathan earlier. It’s funny, in some ways he treats me like Audrey too, but not in a way that makes me seem like I have to be her, you know?”

“In what ways?” Jennifer asked curiously. 

“Like he brings me coffee some mornings just like he did Audrey and he’ll just sit down and talk and laugh like we’re old friends, but at the same time it’s different too.”

“I think that’s just Duke,” Jennifer shrugged. “He just…accepts people as they are and doesn’t push things. The few days that you were processing once you got back, I think he was doing the same thing. Something that Nathan hasn’t actually done yet.”

“I would guess that helps,” Lexi nodded. “He did seem a lot more put together when I saw him after that. He even put booze in my coffee which is definitely not something he ever did for Audrey,” she laughed. 

“He’s pretty good at reading people most of the time. A lot like you in that way,” Jennifer pointed out amusedly. 

“It’s a bartender skill,” she shrugged. “Speaking of Duke…how are things going with you and him? Any moves made yet?” 

“Nah, and I doubt there will be. I mean, there’s some flirting and stuff, but not like it’s serious if you know what I mean…the field is clear if you want to take a shot,” Jennifer teased. 

Lexi snorted. “I think I have enough going on in my life right now than trying to worry about whether or not Duke and I even /could/ have something.”

“You don’t think you could?” Jennifer asked. She would be lying if she said that she wasn’t interested in Duke and she was pretty sure that he was interested too, but she knew that was as far as it would go. They could have fun together and maybe even fall seriously in like, but they could never work long-term if for no other reason than his ‘less than legal’ business ventures scared the hell out of her. Lexi though…she and Duke fit so much better. 

“I think that he was in love with Audrey, and I couldn’t handle being a replacement. I know that he sees me as my own individual person and all, but…I just don’t know,” Lexi sighed. 

“But do you have feelings for him?” Jennifer asked leadingly. 

“It’s funny…I remember how Audrey loved him, but it’s like…that has nothing to do with my feelings for him. Yeah, some of the memories she has of him help me to know him better, but that’s it. The things she didn’t like, I do and vice versa.” 

“So there are feelings for him,” Jennifer prodded with a knowing grin. 

“I didn’t say that,” Lexi tried to hedge. 

“But you didn’t deny it either.” 

“I just…you’re my best friend…and I need a best friend a lot more than I need a guy. I know you have a thing for him…”

“Lex, listen,” Jennifer shook her head. “Yeah, I have a thing for him in the way that anyone would have a thing for a gorgeous, sweet, generous guy. But I’m not like, in love with him or anything, and I doubt I ever would be. While that side of him is pretty damn perfect, he has a dark side too, as I’m sure you know, and that part…I don’t think I could handle, you know?” When she saw that Lexi understood that she told her, “You’re my best friend too, and even if I was in love with him, I wouldn’t let a guy come between us, but since I’m not…I don’t have any problem with you going after him.”

“Thanks Jen,” Lexi sighed with relief. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t know if I can ever be completely separate from Audrey in his mind or his heart. And I have way too much to deal with right now to try and figure it out.” 

“I get that. Just know that when and if you do go for it, you have my support and any help you need,” Jennifer assured her. 

“I appreciate that,” Lexi said gratefully. “Moving on though…anyone else you’ve got your eye on?” 

“Well…” Jennifer blushed and looked away. 

“Ooh this is gonna be good,” Lexi grinned and refilled their drinks again before telling her. “Come on. Spill. Who is it?” 

“Dwight is pretty cute,” she admitted. 

“Police chief Dwight?” Lexi asked in surprise before admitting, “Yeah he is pretty cute.”

“Okay now that one I’ll fight you for,” Jennifer joked tossing a pillow at Lexi. 

Lexi laughed and threw it back as she said, “Don’t worry. You can have him. He’s a little too straight-laced for my taste.” 

“Why am I not surprised?” Jennifer teased. They chatted for a couple more hours before Jennifer headed out. She had a job interview in the morning and being hung over would be bad enough without being short on sleep too. 

Lexi stepped out to the balcony to watch her and make sure she made it back to the boat safely, watching her stagger across the dock. She laughed, pretty close to plastered herself, when Duke had to catch her when she literally fell into the boat. She heard Duke laugh too as he looked up and waved at her once he got Jennifer steady on her feet. She waved back and headed back inside to get ready for bed.

Duke handed Jennifer a large glass of water as he asked, “You get her all cheered up?” 

“Yeah. She’s okay now. Surprised you didn’t go cheer her up,” she told him, not quite drunk enough to start spilling secrets, but enough that she wanted to dig a bit. 

“I thought about it, but I was pretty pissed at Nathan myself and didn’t think it would help much if we were both pissy,” Duke chuckled. “Plus, I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t open up as much with me as with a girlfriend.” 

“You’re not wrong there,” Jennifer admitted. So much of their talk hadn’t really been something to share with Duke after all. She probably wouldn’t have admitted how hurt and rejected she felt with how Nathan was treating her either. 

“You should drink up and get some sleep so you’re not too hung over in the morning,” Duke told her amusedly. “I’m headed to bed myself. Gonna get up early and try to catch Wade.” 

The next morning at the station, Duke let Lexi know that he’d caught up with Wade and that Wade promised to leave town and she was relieved. When she realized that Duke had brought in Freddy she almost laughed. She managed to hold that part back, but couldn’t resist chiding him about the Jager shots she served him most nights. She ignored the thoughtful look from Nathan as they walked out, but her cornered her at the water cooler to talk. “I owe you an apology,” he said sincerely. 

“Yeah, you do,” Lexi said stubbornly. 

When that didn’t seem to be enough for her, Nathan scrambled for something else to say. He’d never been good at words. Apologies even less. He had to try though if he wanted anything to get any better apparently. The fact that it would have been enough for Audrey was just another neon sign that they were very different people. “I refused to even consider the idea that Audrey could be gone and I was so fixated on getting her back that I didn’t think of how it would make you feel. I should have, and I’m sorry.” When Lexi just crossed her arms and tapped her foot expectantly, Nathan was caught off guard. “Um…I’ll try to do better and see you for yourself?” he hoped that was the right thing. 

“Good enough, I guess,” Lexi huffed. 

“And I know you don’t want to be here. You don’t want to be a cop at all. But as long as you are, I do need your help. I’ll try to find things you’re more comfortable doing if you’ll meet me halfway?” he asked hopefully, trying to remember Duke’s words from last night. 

“I can do that. But I make no promises on quality,” Lexi told him.


	4. Chapter 4

They were both glad they got that worked out since her avoiding him came to an abrupt end when they ended up with a trouble case that apparently killed Freddy. Learning that they couldn’t sleep made working through the night on it a given and Lexi even resisted the urge to point out that she was immune to the troubles so she could have slept. It wasn’t like pulling all-nighters was anything new for her anyway. 

While Nathan and Lexi were scrambling to figure out the trouble, Duke was taking advantage of not being able to sleep and keeping himself distracted by trying to figure out what Wade had been up to. What he found was not what he expected and he had to fight not to be sick when he found his brother’s dumping ground. He called Lexi to take her up on her offer to track him down and the intervention and he had been lucky to catch her at the station. She had been about to leave to take the troubled person home and help her beat it. She made time to do a quick tracking and promised to help with the intervention part as soon as she was done with this. 

Duke headed for where Lexi had tracked Wade’s phone to and got there just in time to stop a guard member from getting in his car. Once he ran the guy off, he turned to his brother. “I know, Wade. I know everything.”

“What are you talking about?” Wade asked confused. 

“I saw your dumping ground. I saw the bodies. Jordan’s body,” Duke said shakily. 

“They were troubled,” Wade told him as he walked closer, but Duke just held up a hand to stop him. “I was helping them. Saving them. And their families. That’s why we have this gift. This power,” he tried to reason with his brother. 

“It isn’t a power,” Duke said disgustedly. “It’s a curse. This is /our/ trouble.”

“But we’re not like the others.”

The way Wade seemed almost gleeful about it made a fresh wave of nausea wash over Duke as he wondered if their father was like this when he lost himself in it too. If he had enjoyed it as much as Wade seemed to. “This thing turned you into a killer. If that’s not a curse then I don’t know what is!” Duke all but yelled. 

“You’re not gonna…turn me in, are you?” Wade asked worriedly. He still had too much work to do. He would have appreciated his brother’s help, but clearly that wasn’t happening. “I mean, I know you’re friends with the cops and all, but…we /are/ brothers.”

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do,” Duke shook his head ruefully. If this intervention thing of Lexi’s didn’t work then he had no idea what he /could/ do. “You killed all those people, Wade. That’s on me too now.” If he hadn’t been so gullible as to believe him. If he had pushed harder. If he had told him the truth in the first place even…all this could have been avoided. “Just…come with me, Wade. We can fix this. I can teach you how to fight it.”

“Fight it?” Wade scoffed. “I don’t want to fight it. We shouldn’t be fighting it, we should be using it. We should be working together…like brothers.” 

Duke shook his head sadly and said, “Okay.” He just had to get him to let his guard down. Unfortunately, Wade seemed to have been expecting it because before he could knock Wade unconscious he spun around, knocking Duke’s arm away and the surprise of the motion left Duke the one unconscious as Wade jumped in his car and took off. 

Wade barreled back towards town, making the hard decision on the way. Jordan thought that she might have been wrong about killing Lexi ending the troubles but she hadn’t been sure of that. With Duke working against him now, there wasn’t time to kill the troubles one by one. There was only one option left. Hope that Jordan was right the first time and killing Lexi would stop them all. 

Lexi and Jennifer were sitting on Lexi’s couch. Duke had suggested doing this here instead for the simple reason that there weren’t nearly as many hidden weapons nearby if things went badly. Jennifer had offered to help so now they were just waiting on Duke to get back with Wade. When there was a knock on the door, Lexi called out, “in here,” and Wade came walking in. “Where’s Duke?” Lexi asked suddenly nervous when he hadn’t come in with him. 

“Busy,” Wade told them. “I /am/ sorry about this. I don’t want to hurt you, but…”

Lexi was the first to move towards Wade to tackle him as she said, “Jennifer, run.” At least one of them had to go get help. 

Wade sidestepped Lexi and grabbed Jennifer around the waist, holding her back against him as he pulled his knife. “It’ll be okay,” he promised her in a whisper. “Just stay still and I won’t kill you. I just need a taste. A little boost is all.” Clearly Lexi intended to fight and he would take any advantage he could get. He put the knife tighter against Jennifer’s throat, making her whimper, as he noticed Lexi move. “Don’t even think about picking up that phone or I’ll bleed her dry.” 

Lexi slowly stood back up, arms held out at her sides. “Okay. I won’t. Just…listen, Wade. I know how this thing makes you feel, but you don’t have to…”

“It’s not about that!” Wade snapped before making a nick on the side of Jennifer’s neck and leaning down to drink her blood. He sighed in relief as he felt the power infuse him and looked back up at Lexi with glowing silver eyes. “It’s about ending the troubles. Saving everyone. And that means killing you.” 

“Okay-okay-okay…wait!” she said fearfully as she slowly backed up. “Look, if any of us knew for a fact that killing me would end the troubles, I wouldn’t hesitate to let you. Hell, even if it were just a solid theory, I’d be willing to take the chance, but we don’t know that. We don’t have any reason to think that it would.” 

“Jordan thought it would,” Wade told her. 

“She tell you that before you killed her?” Jennifer asked through her fear.

“Did she tell you why?” Lexi asked, seeing Wade hesitate. “Just…let Jennifer go and we can talk about this. We can figure it out. We /all/ want to end the troubles, Wade.”

Wade shook his head as though to clear it and leaned down for another longer taste of Jennifer’s blood, ignoring her whimpers, before he tossed her aside, not realizing his strength and she slid across the floor, landing next to the door. When he lunged at Lexi, she moved out of the way and tried to run, but he caught her pretty quickly. Jennifer hadn’t quite regained consciousness when Duke burst in and his eyes caught her first and he rushed over to check her pulse, not noticing the blood on her neck until he felt the rush flow through him and he cursed. At least he’d felt a strong pulse so he could turn his attention to finding Lexi. He rounded the corner just in time to see Wade pin her against the wall, knife in hand and he ran over and used his own super strength to throw Wade off of her. He made sure to toss him towards the back corner where he wouldn’t be able to get to either Lexi or Jennifer. All he had time for was a quick check to make sure Lexi was okay before Wade was back on his feet. “Out of the way, Duke,” he said coldly. 

“I’m not gonna let you hurt her. Either of them,” Duke said firmly as he picked up the knife, his eyes glowing just as brightly as his brother’s. “You have to control this!”

“I don’t think I can,” Wade told him. That was part of the reason that he was so intent on ending the troubles. If there were no more troubles then there would be no more troubled blood to tempt him. 

“Wade, please. Don’t make me do it,” Duke begged unashamedly. “I will kill you if I have to.” 

“I know,” Wade said in almost a whisper. That was his only way out now. If he couldn’t get to Lexi and end the troubles then death was his only escape. He rushed at his brother, aiming himself for the knife in case Duke couldn’t bring himself to move it. Jennifer had woken up and came around the corner just as the knife entered Wade’s chest and she let out a gasp as her hands covered her mouth.

Duke slowly lowered Wade’s body to the floor as the light left his eyes and he could feel himself being torn apart by the very idea of what he had done. When his power faded and he realized that he’d just killed his own trouble…the hint of relief that seeped through just made him feel even worse and he hadn’t even realized that was possible. 

Lexi went to get one of her old blankets that she hadn’t thrown out yet and handed it to Duke to help him cover the body. None of them needed to see that. She noticed the broken look on Duke’s paler than ever face as he just stared at the body and she could tell that shock was setting in so she crouched in front of him. “He didn’t give you a choice, Duke,” she said gently. “He wanted you to kill him.” She’d seen him rush straight at the knife, heard his last words, saw him struggling. Duke didn’t respond and didn’t even show any signs of hearing her so she kept trying. “He was going to kill me. You saved my life.” 

Duke finally tore his eyes away from his brother and looked at Lexi for a moment before closing his eyes against the wash of pain. “I know,” he whispered as he opened them again and reached for her cheek and the bruise forming there.

Lexi leaned into his touch, still too high on adrenaline to even feel the pain as she told him, “I’m okay,” she assured him. 

When Jennifer noticed Duke start looking around, it jolted her out of her shock. She went over and crouched next to Lexi. “I’m okay too,” she told him gently. “You saved us both.” Unlike Lexi though, when he reached for the wound on her neck, she flinched away and they could both see the fresh wave of pain cross his face, so Jennifer forced herself still and let him finish checking on her while Lexi reached a hand out and placed it soothingly on his other arm. “Duke…your trouble…it’s gone…” she said surprised, hoping that he would realize that it was why she’d flinched away. 

“No one can know about this,” Duke said as tears started to fill his eyes and he looked away from both of them. 

“Duke, it wasn’t your fault. We can help you. Even Nathan will understand,” Lexi assured him. 

“Will he?” Duke asked brokenly. “I told him to trust me. And look what happened.” Nathan had turned on him for far less. This was the first time in years that Nathan had extended him even the smallest amount of trust. “Look what I did,” his voice shook with emotion. 

“You’re not like your brother, Duke,” Jennifer was the first to say. 

“Then why did you flinch when I touched you?” 

“Because I’m bleeding…your trouble…” Jennifer refused to admit that even a little bit was that she was afraid of him because she wasn’t really. It was just an instinctual reaction after seeing him kill someone. 

Lexi knew the truth though and she quickly changed the subject before Duke could dig deeper. “We won’t say anything,” she promised. “I think you’re wrong about Nathan, but if you need us to keep this secret, we will. For you.” Duke nodded gratefully and went to roll his body in the blanket, assuming that since Lexi had given it to him for this she wasn’t going to want it back. “We can help you with…”

“No,” Duke said quickly. “I got it.” He needed to do this alone and thankfully they both understood that. Lexi more so than Jennifer, but Jennifer followed Lexi’s lead. 

“Jennifer can stay here tonight,” Lexi offered to them both and Jennifer looked at Duke to see him give a haunted nod before she agreed. Duke picked up his brother and left without another word. 

“Will he be okay?” Jennifer asked worriedly. 

“I hope so,” Lexi sighed. “I couldn’t imagine having to…” she trailed off, unable to even say the words. She wished she had thought to get her gun and do it herself. Before he’d had to. It wasn’t something that was instinct to her though. Until a week ago she’d never even handled a gun before and she’d certainly never killed anyone. To save herself and Jennifer…and to save Duke from having to kill his own brother…she might have made an exception. She contented herself with the fact that it had been on the other side of the room anyway and moving for it would have likely deteriorated everything even worse. 

“I’m really not afraid of him,” Jennifer had to make sure that Lexi understood that. 

“I know,” Lexi assured her. “I know that his dark side scares you in general and being faced with it like that…but I know that you’re not afraid of /him/. You know just as well as I do that he would never hurt either of us. Or anyone if he could help it.” 

“Yeah. I do,” Jennifer nodded, glad that Lexi understood what she couldn’t even manage to put into words herself. 

After the fifth time that Lexi’s eyes strayed to the two bloodstains on the floor, Jennifer’s by the door and Wade’s in the middle of the room, she decided, “Why don’t we go downstairs? There’s still a couple hours until closing time.” Jennifer gladly agreed and they didn’t go back upstairs until after the Gull closed for the night. Neither of them slept very well, but thanks to the generous amounts of alcohol they’d consumed, they did get /some/ sleep. They were both dragging ass in the morning though as they headed to their respective jobs. 

Nathan definitely had something to say about Lexi’s bruised and swollen cheek, but she just brushed him off. “It’s fine. Duke handled it.” 

“He need help burying the body?” Nathan asked amusedly, intending it as a joke and Lexi just laughed tensely. She had no intention of breaking Duke’s confidence and telling Nathan that it wasn’t as much of a joke as he thought. 

It was only about an hour into the day when Lexi got a call from Jennifer and went to rush out. Nathan tried to stop her, but she just told him, “Look, where I come from a friend in need is a lot more important than any stupid job and we’re not doing anything right now ‘cept being bored.” 

“Just…keep your phone on you,” Nathan called as she was already halfway out the door and he huffed and sat back down. 

Lexi got to her apartment and unlocked the door to help Jennifer bring her stuff in. When she found out that Duke had kicked her off the boat, she gladly offered her place. Once they got everything inside, Jennifer headed back to work and Lexi went looking for Duke. He was her friend too and was clearly in need of help as much as Jennifer was given the things he’d said to her. She got down to the dock just in time to see Duke rushing Vince and Dave into some kind of big box. “Not now, Lexi,” Duke said wearily as she walked up. 

“Yes now,” she said seriously, but did wait until he finished doing whatever he was doing to the box before pulling him to the side. 

“Look, you’re not gonna convince me to stay so don’t even bother.” 

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Lexi told him. “I get it, you know? You and me…we’re a lot alike. We try to be selfish and look out for ourselves since no one else will, but it’s not always so easy. But unlike me, you’re a hero, Duke. Whether you like it or not.”

“You think you know me?” Duke scoffed. 

“Yeah. I do,” Lexi said matter-of-factly. “And I can tell you from experience that running from your problems…it don’t fix anything. You need to take off, get your head on straight, rebuild some of that armor of yours, go ahead. I’m not gonna try and stop you. But just…come back when you’re done kay?” 

“Why? So I can keep being everyone’s punching bag? The schmuck who everyone depends on for everything?” 

“No,” Lexi shook her head and put a hand on his arm. “You want to come back and tell the rest of the town to go fuck themselves, I’ll be right there with you. But you do have people here who care about you, regardless of anything you do for them. And I know there are people that you care about too. Where else you gonna find that?” 

Duke sighed heavily and nodded. “I’ll think about it,” was as far as he could go. 

“Good enough,” Lexi agreed and turned to leave. She’d gotten a text from Nathan to meet him at a scene a while ago. It didn’t take long before they were headed back towards Duke to talk to Vince and Dave. Lexi could have told Nathan not to bother asking Duke for help right now, but he never consulted her on the matter and got his head bitten off for it which didn’t surprise Lexi in the slightest. 

Lexi felt even more out of her depth than usual on this case and with so many lives at stake she was barely holding it together, not that she let anyone see how close she was to snapping. She was okay with the whole talking people down and helping them deal with their issues part. She was good at that. She couldn’t even get close to this guy though and she had no idea what to do. When Duke came through with the pressure suits, she could have kissed him. It just proved yet again what she’d told him earlier. When push came to shove he couldn’t /not/ be the hero. 

Lexi begged off the paperwork that evening and went straight home. She couldn’t deal with any more today. When she got there, she found Jennifer getting her still unpacked stuff back together. “You’re leaving?” 

“Going back to the boat,” she rolled her eyes. “Apparently Duke had a change of heart and is staying now.”

Part of Lexi wanted to suggest making Duke sweat it out for a while, but given the circumstances she knew that he was handling things about as well as could be expected. Better than most would really. He didn’t need to worry about whether his friends would forgive him for being an ass on top of that, so she just asked, “You need some help?” 

“Sure. Thanks,” Jennifer gratefully accepted and they got her moved back down to the boat in two trips. 

Lexi was helping Jennifer unpack when Duke came in and cleared his throat from the doorway. “I owe you both an apology…”

“No, you don’t,” Lexi shook her head. 

“Yeah, we completely understand what you’re going through,” Jennifer added. 

“We’d be more worried if you /weren’t/ messed up,” Lexi told him. 

“Friends forgive each other. Even when they’re being jerks,” Jennifer gave him a playful shove to let him know everything was okay. 

“Well I’m still sorry,” Duke chuckled pulling each of them into a one armed hug. He knew that he owed Jennifer the biggest apology for kicking her out with no notice like he did, but he hadn’t exactly been /nice/ to Lexi either. 

“We know,” Lexi grinned hugging him back from the opposite side of Jennifer. “We’re all good.” 

“Good. Then drinks are on me tonight. Just meet me at the Gull when you’re done,” Duke grinned back. 

“I think we’re done enough,” Jennifer said, looking at Lexi.

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” Lexi laughed, following right behind Duke towards the bar. She knew that Duke wasn’t nearly as okay yet as he was pretending to be and he needed to be able to cut loose and get drunk. She and Jennifer, by silent agreement, took it a little easy on the drinks. They still drank enough to get buzzed, but not smashed, unlike Duke. It ended up taking both of them to help him back to the boat where he could pass out.


	5. Chapter 5

Lexi spent most of the next day sorting out the paperwork that she’d put off the day before and wishing that she didn’t have to do this stupid job that she hated. Thankfully it ended up being a trouble-free day and she didn’t hesitate to beg off the few minor calls they got. She hadn’t been back home long when Nathan showed up to talk some more about her killing him. “Listen, if we knew for a fact that it would work…I might be willing to discuss it,” Lexi told him. With as bad as things were getting, she wouldn’t have much choice. “But there is no reason to think that it would work and I’m not going to kill you for nothing. Period.” 

They were interrupted by an intruder in the house and Nathan shot at him just as Duke, Jennifer, Vince, and Dave were on their way up to talk about what they’d learned in the journal. As soon as the shot rang out, Duke was taking the stairs five at a time, but the intruder got away. Lexi was still a little shaken up when Vince explained about the journal and the ‘great evil’, but when they got to the part where killing Nathan was off the table, all she could think was, “Does that mean I can quit being a cop?” 

“I…well…I don’t see any reason why not. If we don’t need you to fall in love with Nathan and kill him…” Vince said a bit taken aback at her takeaway from the conversation. 

“Great,” she said relieved and turned to Nathan with a serious. “I quit.” She then turned to Duke. “I don’t suppose you need…”

“You’re hired,” Duke laughed amusedly. “But how about we talk details tomorrow once we get this mess figured out, yeah?” 

“Hold on a second,” Nathan shook his head to clear it from the abrupt turn. “You can’t just quit. There’s still the troubles and…”

“And if you need someone to talk some poor sap down off the ledge, you know where to find me. But that’s about all I’m good for and you know it,” Lexi told him. 

“That was all Lucy’s job was too,” Dave chimed in. “And most of Sarah’s.” He got Lexi’s point and had never completely agreed with his brother about forcing her to be a cop. He’d only kept his mouth shut because it was the only way that the guard would not kill Nathan. 

“Then it’s settled,” Vince nodded. “I’ll spread the word when we’re done here to make sure there aren’t any problems. Now…If we can move on to the ‘great evil’ that is plaguing this town…” he said impatiently. 

“Well, I don’t really know anything about that,” Lexi shrugged. “It wasn’t like I was given a manual in the barn or anything.” 

“I’ve got sketches of the men who have been attacking the people with mutated or new troubles. Maybe see if you recognize them?” Vince asked as he pulled out the pages and spread them out. Lexi immediately recognized them from the barn, but couldn’t tell anyone much more about them. It was after midnight before they accepted that and left. 

The next morning, Lexi appreciated the chance to sleep in and didn’t get out of bed until almost noon when she went into town and talked Jennifer into taking a break from work and grabbing lunch. She was very much enjoying her newfound freedom. She had been back home for a few hours and was just considering going to hunt Duke down to talk some more about the job when there was a knock at her door and she happily let Duke in who came bearing dinner. 

Once they were seated and eating, Duke brought up the subject. “So I’m thinking I’m definitely going to want you working Friday and Saturday nights. One thing about a small town like this…bartender mostly just means someone who can pour a drink and has decent people skills.” 

“Yeah, I’m good with that. And I’ll even teach some of your current bartenders a few things,” Lexi easily agreed. 

“Mondays and Tuesdays are the slowest nights so maybe you could work then too and use it for teaching during the down times?” Duke asked. 

“Sure thing,” she nodded. “But you know I’m gonna have to be paid under the table right?” She didn’t know how the department got around the whole lack of ID thing, but she didn’t want to put it to the test any more than she had to. 

“You would be far from the only one,” Duke laughed as they got into more details and scheduling talk. 

About the time they finished eating and got up from the table, Duke had screwed up his courage and grabbed her wrist before she could walk away. He wanted to wait until everything was settled with the job to avoid any appearance of this seeming like a condition. “Just…one thing before you’re officially my employee and sexual harassment and all comes into play…” He put his hands to her cheeks and pressed his lips to hers gently, only lingering for a moment before pulling away. He was giving her the option of continuing it or walking away. 

Lexi sucked in a sharp breath when she felt his lips on hers and then he was moving away and damnit, she didn’t want that. She followed him, sliding her hands up his arms as she pulled him in for another kiss and then he was kissing her back with just as much enthusiasm. She plastered herself against him and tangled a hand in his hair, pulling it out of it’s tail, as she completely lost herself in him. 

Duke wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tightly against him as the internal fireworks exploded. It was so much more than Colorado. It was perfection and the very idea of stopping was almost painful. Clearly she had the same idea because his overshirt was being shoved off his shoulders as his lips trailed down to her neck and shoulder. 

Lexi couldn’t help the mewling moan that pulled from her throat as a large hand moved to her ass and she could feel his hard length pressing against her stomach. The talented lips moving over skin didn’t help matters either and she was more than impatient to get this show on the road. She almost whimpered as they separated long enough for him to strip her shirt off and she took the opportunity to do the same with his undershirt and then hands were roaming over every inch of skin they could reach. 

It wasn’t long before Duke picked Lexi up and she wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling a moan from him as he could feel himself being pressed against her core. He carried her towards the bed and about the time he was setting her down her hands moved to the front of his pants and she got them undone and pushed down in record time. He let out another moan as her hand wrapped around his length and gave a few strokes before he moved away enough to kick off his pants the rest of the way and pull off her skirt and underwear. 

As Duke moved back over her, kissing her again but clearly holding himself back from going too far, Lexi knew what was stopping him. She reached into her bedside table and pulled out a condom and put it in his hand and he wasted no time ripping it open. She reached down to help him roll it on and then her back arched off the bed with a cry of pleasure as he plunged in. He forced himself to slow down, but his motions were still rough, almost like he knew exactly what she wanted and Lexi met him thrust for thrust as lips trailed every inch of skin they could reach and hands clutched and groped. 

Duke couldn’t hold himself back for /too/ long though and soon sped up, feeling her right there with him as he chased that edge and the nails scratching down his back as she fell over it with a harsh cry was enough to rip his own orgasm from him. He stilled over her, pressing lazy sloppy kisses over her neck and shoulder as they rode out the waves. Right that moment he didn’t even care if this was a one time thing. He still felt like the luckiest guy on earth. And if that luck held, this would be much more than a one-time thing. 

Once she had caught her breath enough to speak, Lexi asked with a grin, “So, I don’t have to choose between this and the job do I? Because as much as I want that job, I might have to pass…”

Duke cut her off with a quick kiss before giving a throaty chuckle. “You don’t have to choose between anything if you don’t want to.”

“Good. Because I want both,” she smirked, lifting her head to kiss him again before he rolled to the side, pulling off the condom and tossing it into the trash. “You staying?” she asked hopefully as she felt the exhaustion start to set in. Normally she was all about kicking guys out of her bed, but this one was different, and she was pretty sure they both knew it. At least she hoped so.

“If you want,” Duke all but whispered, reaching out to brush a lock of sweat-slick hair away from her face. 

“Mhmm,” Lexi muttered in answer as she curled up to his side and rested her head on his chest. She managed to stay awake long enough to register his arm wrapping around her and the kiss to her head before she was fast asleep. Duke smiled happily and pulled the messed up blankets over them before following her to sleep. 

The next morning, Lexi woke up first to find that a bout of insecurity had set in. Clearly, it was even strong enough to wake her up since she was rarely awake early. She didn’t have very long to worry about it before Duke mumbled, “Lexi? y’okay?” 

That made her feel a little bit better, but she still couldn’t help the next words that fell from her mouth. “You know I’m not Audrey right?” 

That was enough to take Duke from half-asleep to fully awake as he shifted enough to look down at her and brush a hand down her cheek. “Believe me sweetheart, if I had any doubt of that, I wouldn’t be in this bed.” 

“Because you and her could never have worked?” Lexi asked, needing to understand where his head was right now. 

“No,” Duke shook his head. “Well, yeah, in a way, but…” He sighed, trying to find the right answer here that would also be the truth. “Look, I would never have let this happen if I didn’t have my head completely straight on this whole issue. I wouldn’t risk hurting you like that any more than I would want to dishonor Audrey’s memory.” 

Lexi gave an accepting sigh as she laid her head back down on his chest. “I’m sorry. I’m not usually so insecure. It’s just…”

“This is a weird situation. I know,” Duke understood. “But I promise you, Lexi. I know exactly what I feel and for who.” He paused a moment, considering whether hearing his thoughts on the matter would help or hurt the situation before deciding that it would be better than letting her subconscious keep filling in things. He wasn’t sure where this was going yet and it was too soon to start figuring it out too much, but he definitely wanted to give it a chance to go /some/where and that meant nipping this situation in the bud before it could get any bigger than it was. “Yeah, Audrey and I could never have worked, but not just because of the cop thing. No matter how much there was that drew me to her, there was just as much that drove me nuts. And not in the good way. Like you said back at the start of all this, there are similarities between you. Deeper personality traits that can’t be changed so easily, and yes…in those ways you remind me of her and those were all the ways that drew me to her, but other than that…you’re a completely different person. It’s no different than friends or family members sharing similar traits.”

“But you don’t…I mean…” Lexi wasn’t even sure how to put into words what she was thinking, but she didn’t need to. Duke knew anyway. 

“Yes, I still miss Audrey. I always will. She was my friend and I cared about her. But when I look at you, I don’t see Audrey. I see Lexi. When I kiss you,” he punctuated the words with a lingering kiss. “I’m kissing /Lexi/.” He took a deep shaky breath before finishing, “And if this is too weird for you and you want to make this a one time thing, then I get it. It won’t change anything between us. You’ll still be my friend and…”

Lexi cut him off with a long deep kiss before pulling back breathlessly to whisper, “I’d very much prefer that this not be a one-time thing.” 

“Me too,” Duke whispered back before pulling her back into another kiss. “So we’re okay then?” 

“Very okay,” she assured him. 

“Good. Because…you know…I’m the guy. I’m supposed to be the one getting close and then freaking out. You’re kinda throwing me off here,” he joked. 

“And /are/ you freaking out?” Lexi grinned amusedly. 

“Do I look like I’m freaking out?” Duke chuckled, kissing her deeply. 

Lexi threw her leg over and slid on top of him without breaking the kiss before she murmured, “Good answer.” She felt his hands sliding up her body as she moved against him, moving her lips to his neck and then continuing down his chest and stomach with breathless sloppy kisses as his hand tangled in her hair in anticipation. 

“God…Lex…” Duke moaned when her lips wrapped around his erection and she sucked him down. The things she could do with that tongue ring were killing him. The hand that wasn’t in her hair, rubbed over her hand and arm that was sliding up over his body as he panted for breath and tried not to thrust up too hard and make her choke. When the ball of her tongue ring swirled around and over the head of his cock he let out a choked whimper and she gave a pleased hum that reverberated through him. 

Lexi never actually got him too close to the edge before she opened the condom she’d palmed on her way down, and she removed her mouth to slowly roll it onto his throbbing member before just as slowly sliding back up his body. She trapped his cock between them, just rolling her hips for a few minutes, thoroughly enjoying the way he was coming undone beneath her and the way his fingertips were digging into her hips that would likely end up leaving bruises. When she wasn’t sure how much more he could take, she shifted position just enough for him to slide inside her and he thrust his hips up hard pulling a moan from her as she gasped, “Duke…yes…” 

Duke knew that this was going to get embarrassing if he didn’t do something so he started counting his breaths to bring him back from the edge even as his hands moved almost with a mind of their own. One moved around the small of her back as she rolled her hips and the other slid around the front and up to cup one of her pert breasts. She was kneading his chest, fingernails digging in just enough to be on the pleasure side of pain as she rode him hard. It didn’t take long before even counting his breaths wasn’t helping and he panted out, “Shit…Lex…if you don’t…slow down…I’m gonna…cum…soon…” 

That was exactly what Lexi wanted. She wanted to break any semblance of control that he was managing to hold on to. She wanted to be the one to drive him to the brink whether he was ready or not. She wanted to pull him apart and watch him fall to pieces just for her and she would definitely not be far behind him. She started lifting and dropping hard and fast as she leaned forward to kiss him, pulling his lower lip in her teeth, not quite hard enough to draw blood and then he was slamming his hips up meeting her for every thrust. “fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck,” he panted before yelling out, “LEX!” as he exploded inside her and that was all it took for her to follow him as his name fell from her lips reverently. 

She collapsed on top of him as they both tried to catch their breath and he ran a hand through her hair. “You’re gonna kill me, woman,” Duke chuckled once he had enough breath to speak again. 

“But what a way to go, right?” she joked back, getting a hum of agreement before Duke’s phone rang and interrupted them. He reached over to hit ignore, but then it rang again, and he huffed. 

Lexi slid off of him as he picked it up. “This better be important,” he said irritated and still a little out of breath. 

“I don’t know. Would you consider Dwight being held prisoner and tortured important?” Nathan said with a little irritation himself. Since Duke had hired away his partner the least he could do is fill in for emergencies.

“Damnit,” Duke cursed. “Do you know where?”

“We were able to trace the call, yeah,” Nathan told him. 

“Send me the address and I’ll meet you there,” Duke sighed, hanging up the phone and sliding out of bed. “So much for making us breakfast,” he muttered. 

“That’s okay,” Lexi assured him. “You can make it up to me next time.”

“Dinner tonight? Trouble permitting of course?” 

“Perfect,” Lexi grinned as Duke pulled his pants on before turning serious again. “Can we…not tell Nathan? About us?” 

“You want to keep it secret?” Duke asked, hurt coloring his voice. 

“No, not from everyone,” Lexi shook her head emphatically. “Just from him.”

“Well if other people know then he’s gonna find out,” Duke pointed out. Judging by the look on Lexi’s face, she hadn’t thought of that. “Why don’t you want him to know?” Duke asked, pausing in his dressing and sitting on the edge of the bed next to her. The address was closer to them than Nathan after all so a slight delay wouldn’t hurt. 

“It’s just…I heard what he told you when we had that fight. About me being an ‘improved version of Audrey’ and I just…”

“And now that conversation from before makes so much more sense,” Duke sighed. He looked her in the eyes and reached a hand to her cheek. “As long as /you/ know that’s not true that’s all that matters and if he gives you a hard time about it, let me know and I’ll set him straight. Again.” 

“Okay,” Lexi agreed, leaning into his touch. “That’s okay then.” The last thing she wanted was to have to keep this secret from everyone, after all. She leaned forward and kissed him gently. “You should hurry.”

Duke nodded and got up throwing his shirt on and slipping into his shoes before rushing out the door. There was a police chief to save. And then a beautiful bartender to wine and dine. He’d forgotten about Nathan’s sensitive nose though and the first thing Nathan said as he walked up was, “You smell like sex.”

Duke snorted amusedly as he replied, “Yeah, well. I was a little busy when you called. Sue me.” 

“At nine am,” Nathan scoffed amusedly and rolled his eyes before motioning for quiet as they approached the building. At least he had an explanation for the attitude now and he actually felt a little bad for interrupting. It wasn’t like it was his fault this happened though.


	6. Chapter 6

Once Duke was gone, Lexi pulled herself out of bed and started some coffee, adding a generous helping of Bailey’s to it before her thoughts turned to where Duke went and her first thought was Jennifer. Dwight had finally taken one of Lexi’s neon sign hints and asked Jennifer out for the coming weekend. She took a quick shower and got dressed before heading to the Herald office to find Jennifer. Either Jennifer already knew and would be a wreck or she didn’t know and Lexi needed to keep her from finding out. It seemed she wasn’t the only one with that idea because Dave rushed outside as she came up and whispered, “You know what’s going on?” 

“Yeah, I heard. Why are we whispering?” Lexi asked amusedly. 

“Because Jennifer doesn’t know. We’ve been trying to keep her distracted enough but there’s really not that much to do around here…well unless we get her started cleaning and organizing the storerooms or…”

“Relax, Dave,” Lexi laughed. Jennifer would owe her big time for saving her from that particular nightmare. “I can take it from here if you’ll give her the day off.” 

“Consider it done,” Dave nodded waving her inside impatiently. 

“…and this is the year we changed the fonts. It’s a funny story…” Lexi heard Vince explaining to Jennifer as they flipped through a book with old issues of the Herald. Oh yeah. Jennifer definitely owed her. She cleared her throat getting Vince’s attention and he looked up with a happy, “Lexi! What brings you here?” 

“Well I was gonna steal Jennifer away for a while if she’s not too busy,” Lexi suggested like it was the first time it was mentioned. 

Looks were exchanged between Vince and Dave before Vince said, “Oh no. Not at all. It’s rather slow today and we were just going through some old history. You ladies go. Have fun.”

Jennifer grabbed her jacket and followed Lexi out quickly, managing to wait until they were outside before whispering a sincere, “Thank you.” 

Lexi laughed and linked her arm with Jennifer’s, “Anytime. So it dawned on me that we haven’t gone shopping for your date this weekend…” She paused before dropping the bombshell that would keep her well and truly distracted. “And coincidentally I need to do some shopping for a date tonight too.”

“A date? Really? With…you know who?” she finished in a conspiratorial whisper as she glanced around, not wanting to broadcast that Lexi was actually interested in someone just in case. 

“Yep,” Lexi grinned. “We got together last night…and this morning. And he suggested dinner tonight as long as no Haven emergencies pop up.” And hopefully the current one would be handled by tonight. 

“Oh my god. You have to tell me everything,” Jennifer squealed excitedly as she dragged Lexi into the clothing store. Neither of them were nearly as big on shopping as some women, but given that the entire point was distraction, Lexi managed to drag the trip out until well after lunch while disseminating every detail of her night and morning with Duke prior to the phone call. And after she got the message from Duke that everyone was safe which meant that it was okay for Jennifer to find out. Lexi broke the news over their late lunch and Jennifer was both irritated and glad that she wasn’t told until it was over. She did rush to the station to make sure that Dwight was okay as soon as they finished eating though and Lexi offered to take her new clothes home for her to pick up later. As much as Lexi wanted to see Duke and make sure he was okay too, she wanted to avoid the station that much more. Her forced stint there was still a little too fresh on her mind.

Duke was left to corral the amnesiac they’d found while Nathan and the rest of the cops interrogated the two guys they’d arrested. The guy seemed to be looking around for someone which was driving Duke to distraction before he admitted that he remembered his name was William. Duke remembered Lexi mentioning a William from the barn and decided to bring it up with her tonight and see if she wanted to meet with him tomorrow and try to help him remember. That would give him time to get examined at the hospital and since it didn’t seem like an emergency type thing, he didn’t want to interrupt their date. He was just starting to get impatient when Nathan came in to let him know that the two guys had escaped somehow and sent an officer with William to the hospital to keep him in protective custody. 

William was more than a little annoyed as he was sent out. He’d been watching for a while and seen that Mara was working here with these people and had planned to use this incident to show her how weak and awful humans were, but since she wasn’t there, he had to change his plans. He just hoped that ‘remembering’ his name would have one of them bring her in soon so this show could get on the road. In the meantime, he would play along. 

Once William was gone, Duke was about to head out when Nathan asked, “So who’s the girl?” He’d been curious all day and finally had the chance to ask. “Just a one off or…”

“No. Definitely not a one off,” Duke chuckled. “It’s…Lexi actually.” Might as well get it out of the way. He could see the storm brewing in Nathan’s eyes so he held up a hand to cut him off. “And don’t even start with your half-baked ‘improved Audrey’ theory. It’s a load of crap and you should know me better than that.” 

Nathan snapped his mouth shut and forced himself to actually think. “Are you sure that it’s not even a subconscious…”

“I’m sure,” Duke said seriously. “And I just spent half the morning convincing her of that, so I’d appreciate if you don’t go putting the idea back in her head.” 

“Do you love her?” Nathan asked. 

Duke snorted and shook his head. “We literally /just/ got together. It’s a little too soon to be talking ‘love’ don’t you think?” 

“But it’s not too soon to sleep with her?” Nathan raised an eyebrow. 

“Geez grandma,” Duke rolled his eyes. “I knew you were out of touch, but really Nate?” 

Nathan couldn’t help but chuckle as he realized how that sounded. “Point. But still…I just don’t want to see either of you get hurt is all.”

“You mean you don’t want to see /her/ get hurt,” Duke huffed a laugh. 

“I meant what I said,” Nathan told him. When Duke cocked a skeptical eyebrow at him, he was the one to roll his eyes this time. “If you haven’t figured out by now that you’re basically my best friend then you’re dumber than you look…and that’s saying a lot.” 

Duke barked a laugh and gave Nathan a friendly shove before actually answering the question. “Do I love her? No. I don’t think so. Not yet. But I could. I think we really have a shot or I wouldn’t be taking the risk.” They were alike enough that he didn’t think she would risk putting her heart out there like this with him unless she was on the same page which made it a little easier. 

“Good enough. Just…be careful.” That was enough to convince Nathan that Duke wasn’t just trying to replace Audrey in his heart. If he was, then he would have answered that question with a clear yes. He just hoped that he was right about that and that it didn’t blow up in all their faces. He knew how Duke reacted when he was hurting and he wasn’t sure that this town could survive if Duke took off again. 

“Always am,” Duke smirked, sounding a lot more confident than he felt. 

“And I know that Lexi and I never really got off on the right foot what with the whole Audrey thing and then being forced to be partners against our will, but hopefully since that’s over we can become friends or something now,” Nathan said hopefully. 

“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind that,” Duke shrugged. “As long as you can treat her like /Lexi/ instead of /Audrey/.” 

“I’m never going to stop missing Audrey. Or stop loving her. But I get now that Lexi isn’t Audrey and that’s not going to change,” Nathan assured him, getting a nod in response before Duke left. He had a date to get ready for after all. 

Duke stopped by the store on the way home and then by the boat to get some of the fish he’d just caught before heading up to Lexi’s apartment. “What are you doing?” she asked curiously when he put the bags on the counter.

“Cooking dinner,” Duke grinned as he pulled her in for a kiss. “You didn’t think I was going to take you out for some impersonal restaurant food for our first date, did you?” 

“Yeah, I kinda did,” Lexi admitted with a chuckle. “What are we having?” she tried to peek in the bags. 

“Uh-uh,” Duke said amusedly grabbing her shoulders and steering her towards a chair. “You sit. I cook.” Lexi laughed but did as he asked before asking about his day. Duke glossed over the rescue of Dwight before getting to the important part and telling her about William. “And I’m not sure if it’s the same William you mentioned from the barn or not, but given that he was being held by the guys from the barn, it’d be a pretty big coincidence if it wasn’t.” 

“You’re right. It would be. I’ll go see him at the hospital in the morning. He helped save my life by getting me out of the barn. The least I can do is try and help him get his memory back,” Lexi shrugged as Duke put the food on the table and they started eating as conversation turned more casual. After dinner they went to sit on the balcony and watch the sunset before they ended up back in bed. 

The next morning, Lexi headed to the hospital to see William and apparently made it just in time since they were about to release him. When she put a hand on his arm, she jumped back at the spark that shot between them. “That was…weird,” she said nervously. 

“Very,” William said making sure to keep a confused look on his face rather than show the triumph he was feeling. She was still in there somewhere. 

“I hear you can’t remember anything?” she asked. When he nodded she gave a little chuckle. “Talk about the tables turning,” she joked. He just looked at her confused so she explained. “When we met in the barn, I didn’t remember anything of my life here either. You helped me get out and remember so I guess it’s only fair if I help you remember too.”

“That would be nice of you,” William said with a smile. 

“They said you were being held prisoner by some guys looking for a box or something. Do you remember anything about that?” Lexi asked, having been asked by Nathan to see what she could figure out on that since it could be dangerous. William didn’t remember anything at first, but once she got him out of the hospital and into town, taking him to get something to eat, it seemed to be jogging something and by late afternoon they were going after where he remembered hiding the box. Once they found it, she reached out to take it. “We should get this to the station.”

William just pulled it away. “Really? We’ve been running around all day. Let’s enjoy the sunset.”

“Look, everybody’s been looking for that box. Those guys who kidnapped you were looking for it. You really want them to find us before that box is somewhere safe?” Lexi asked incredulously. 

“See, it’s not about the box,” William said smugly. “This is about us.” 

“Huh?” Lexi asked suddenly completely confused. 

“Come on. Why don’t you take a seat,” he told her. 

“What are you talking about?” Lexi asked, crossing her arms stubbornly. 

“I know, it’s all happening a little fast, but…you have no /idea/ how excited I was…how /thrilled/ I was to feel that spark between us. You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting.”

“When I touched you back at the hospital, you knew what that was?” Lexi asked, wondering just how cleanly she’d been played and trying to figure out how screwed she was up here alone with him in the middle of nowhere. 

“Yes,” William said excitedly. “It’s…what I’ve been praying for.” He smiled brightly at her before explaining. “When you came out of the barn and stayed Lexi, I thought…I’d lost you forever. But now I know…you…are still in there.”

“You remember the barn,” Lexi asked accusingly. 

“I always did. And so. Much. More.” He turned and walked towards the field and Lexi took the opportunity to call Duke before shoving the phone back in her pocket where William couldn’t see. “This field…this was our favorite place,” he said obliviously. “We used to have such fun up here, and…I know you don’t remember that, but…you will.”

“Okay, I think I see what’s going on here,” Lexi said irritated. “This whole amnesia thing and then bringing me up here to the lookout like I’m supposed to remember something.” 

“Oh there’s so much you have to remember,” William said happily, ignoring her attitude. 

“Yeah, no,” Lexi said firmly. “I’ve already had to put up with this crap once with Nathan and his whole, ‘oh you’re Audrey. You have to remember Audrey and be Audrey again’. Not doing it again. I. Am. Lexi. Leexxii,” she drew out the name like she was talking to a kindergartener. “You want me to be someone else and it ain’t happening. No matter how many of you lovesick twats fall all over yourselves to force me to be someone else, I actually like who I am, thank you. So deal with it and get over it. I’m done,” she turned to storm off. 

“Wait, wait, wait,” William called, reaching out to grab her arm. 

“Let go of me,” she snapped, trying to jerk her arm away. 

“Just…just open the box,” William asked hopefully, taking his hand off her arm and taking a step back in surrender. 

Lexi glared at him and picked it up to open it. “It’s just some stupid flower?” she asked incredulously. 

William sighed and reached to take it back as he said, “Well…that’s disappointing. But not altogether surprising.”

Lexi jerked away and kept ahold of the box, barely managing not to throw it when the flower turned into some kind of balls of black goo. She didn’t know what it was, but it felt important, so she was keeping it. When the big guy from the barn walked out of the woods, she backed up and asked, “You work for him?” 

“No. He works for me,” William said amusedly. “Now why don’t you give me back that box,” he stepped towards her again only to take his own step back as Duke approached with his gun trained on William. 

“I don’t think so,” Duke said coldly, reaching a hand towards Lexi who wasted no time in rushing behind him. “Why don’t we all just walk away.” 

“I want my box,” William said evenly. 

Duke turned back to look at Lexi who shook her head so he told William, “Nope. We’re keeping it. Unless you’d like a bullet instead?” He wasn’t about to try and bring them in under the circumstances. He didn’t think his gun would make too much difference with two of them and he’d only had the one gun on him when he got Lexi’s call so he couldn’t even slip her one to even the score. 

“Very well,” William tilted his head with a nod. Maybe it would work out better anyway. He could still control the Aether that made up the goons after all, so it wasn’t like that was his entire supply and maybe the proximity of it would bring Mara to the surface quicker. She clearly felt some pull towards it, after all. “If you insist,” William held his hands up with a smirk at both of them and took a few more steps back, motioning his creation to do the same. “Oh, but before you go…” he called after them, waiting until Lexi turned back to him before pulling a piece of Aether from his goon. “Let me show you how it works. Then you can experiment and explore to your heart’s content.” He made a show of crushing it in his hand and then showing her his now black hand. 

“It was you,” Lexi said disgustedly. “It’s been you all along. Changing people’s troubles and giving them new ones.”

“Yep,” William grinned. “And it looks like I’m gonna need to keep doing it too. At least until you remember that you love me as much as I love you.” 

“In your dreams,” Lexi scoffed before turning to continue walking away. 

Duke followed her, mostly looking back, keeping his gun trained on William and his goon until they were far enough away not to get the drop on them and then he rushed them back to the cars, following Lexi all the way back to her apartment. Once they were inside, Duke pulled her into a crushing hug. “Thank you for calling me,” he whispered as he ran his hand through her hair. He was glad that she didn’t try to handle it on her own, but he was also glad that she trusted him to have her back. That out of anyone she could have called for help, it was him. 

“Thank you for coming,” she whispered back, finally coming down from the adrenaline and basking in the comfort of Duke’s arms. 

“Always,” Duke vowed. “I’ll always come for you Lexi. No matter what.” They stood there for a long moment, just reminding themselves that they were both okay before Duke finally let her go, brushing her hair back and pressing a soft kiss to her lips. “I guess we should call Nate to come pick up the box…”

“No,” Lexi cut him off. “No, if that stuff can cause troubles and change them around it’s way too dangerous to let anyone else know about it. This has to stay between us. We have to hide it.”

“Okay,” Duke agreed. He could see her point. “You’re not planning to…um…”

“You really think I would use it?” she asked stepping fully away from him with a hurt look on her face. 

“I don’t think you would hurt people, Lex. Just that you might try to use it to find a way to /fix/ the troubles or something,” Duke rushed to dig himself out of the hole. When he saw her relaxing, he reached out again and stepped back towards her, cupping her cheek. “I know you would never hurt anyone.” 

“No. I wouldn’t. And way too much could go wrong with experimenting, so no. I don’t plan to touch the stuff. Just keep it away from William and anyone else who could use it.” She knew that William apparently had more, but hopefully not much. Every bit she could keep out of his hands would help. 

“Okay. I have an idea where to put it,” Duke suggested as he dragged a chair over to a spot in the middle of the floor. Lexi watched curiously as he stood on the chair and pried a board out of the ceiling. He pulled down another box and handed it down to her before putting William’s box there and then putting the board back in place so no one could ever tell it wasn’t always there. He hopped down off the chair and took his box back from her. “I put that there before I decided to make this into an apartment and didn’t really think of it since. I can hide this one on the boat, but I don’t want to take any chances with that stuff. Who knows what’ll happen if it gets wet or something.” 

“What’s in…never mind. I don’t think I want to know,” Lexi started to ask before stopping herself and thinking better of it. 

Duke laughed and stole a kiss. “Smart,” he quipped. “I’ll be back in a few minutes?” He really didn’t want to leave her alone tonight. 

“Is it going to hurt anything to leave that box out until morning?” she asked, not wanting him to leave at all right now. 

“Not as long as it’s not in plain sight,” Duke agreed before opening one of her drawers and shoving it in. The last thing he needed was for Nathan to find it, but he doubted that Nathan would go rummaging through Lexi’s drawers even if he did come by before he got it out of here. “Come on. Why don’t we go hit the bar for a while?” 

“That sounds perfect,” Lexi sighed with relief. She could go for a drink right now. A few dozen of them.

Duke went down with her and waited until she was seated at the bar with a drink in plain sight of everyone before he told her, “I do need to go call Nate and update him on William being a bad guy and all, but I’ll be right back, okay?” 

Lexi nodded, feeling a lot better about him leaving her side when there were other people around. She didn’t realize that this was their first ‘outing’ as a couple until he kissed her and there were quite a few brief stares before people went back to their business. She was just glad that it came out before she started work tomorrow night. Give people a chance to get used to the idea.


	7. Chapter 7

Later that night, Lexi was sleeping in Duke’s arms when she suddenly jolted awake, gasping for breath. Duke propped up on his elbow worriedly, and started rubbing her back. “Lex? Y’okay?” he murmured sleepily. 

“Yeah…I’m okay…just a bad dream…sorry,” she said as she tried to get her heart to beat slower. She wasn’t sure why she lied to Duke beyond just needing to wrap her own head around it first. Maybe it /was/ just a bad dream anyway. It just felt so real. Like she had actually been there. With William. The pure evil she felt was…both intoxicating and sickening at the same time.

“You want to talk about it?” Duke asked gently. 

“No, it’s fine. Maybe tomorrow,” she shook her head. “Right now I just want to go back to sleep.” She laid back down and Duke’s arms wrapped back around her, holding her more firmly than before as he drifted back to sleep, but it was a long time coming for her. 

The next day, Duke could tell that something was bothering her, but since she didn’t seem to want to talk about it, he let her be. If it didn’t resolve itself, he would push a bit, but he’d give her a chance to deal with it on her own if that’s what she wanted. He made them both a nice breakfast before taking his box and heading to his boat to hide it. He had some work to do today anyway that kept getting pushed back with all the disasters and she was starting her new job at the Gull this afternoon. 

Lexi got ready for work with a spring in her step that wasn’t stopped by not having slept well the night before. It wasn’t like she hadn’t tended bar at the Gull half a dozen times before, but this time she was getting paid for it. It was her actual job. She started at two when the bar opened and was the only bartender until five which was when it usually started getting busy and Amy joined her. They quickly worked out a system where Lexi would take any of the more complicated drinks and whenever there was time, Amy would watch and learn. The patrons seemed to enjoy trying to stump her with a drink she didn’t know so she had fun. 

Around seven Lexi saw Jennifer come in with Dwight and they headed to the tables for dinner and she shot Jennifer a grin and a thumbs up, making Jennifer blush as she grinned back. When they left an hour later, they looked pretty cozy together and Lexi was glad for her friend. Aside from her dinner break when it slowed down for a little while, Lexi worked straight through until closing at midnight, and then helped shut the place down and made it up to bed at almost two am. It was the first night she slept without Duke since they got together. The next day she hardly saw Duke at all other than him popping by to check in on the business and steal a kiss a few times and once again, he slept on his boat since she worked so late. Both nights she had the same nightmares and she wondered if it was just William trying to jog her memory or the shock thing when he touched her or even just sleeping close to that black goo stuff, but no matter what was causing it, she hated it. 

The next day it was almost lunchtime when she woke up and she didn’t even have time to start her coffee maker before there was a knock on the door and she found Duke standing there with two cups of coffee. “Mmm. Thank you,” she said gladly, taking one of the cups and giving him a kiss as she let him in. 

Duke had been trying not to smother her, and also needed some time to get his head straight before he got even more lost in her than he already was. He needed some space to figure out his feelings and came to the conclusion that he was falling hard, which just made him even more determined not to smother her. He still couldn’t resist a joke though. “I’ve missed you the past couple days. You work too much.”

Lexi chuckled as she plopped on the couch and curled up to his side. “You’ll have to talk to my boss about that. I’d be careful though. He’s kind of a hardass,” she teased and then squealed as he dug his fingers into her side. “What? You do have a hard ass. I could bounce quarters off that thing,” she laughed. 

He laughed with her and kissed her head. “You’re priceless, Lex. Don’t ever change.” 

“Not planning on it,” she grinned and leaned up for a real kiss. They spent the rest of the day and night together, again punctuated with nightmares for Lexi and she was considering giving in and telling Duke about them, but then they were woken up at the crack of dawn by someone banging on the door.

Duke was up before Lexi could even consider moving and he motioned for her to stay put as he grabbed his gun and crept towards the door. He peeked out the curtain before relaxing. “Sec Nate,” he called as he moved back towards the bed to grab his pants as Lexi finished dressing. “What’s wrong?” he asked as he opened the door a few minutes later. 

“Volcano by the library. We need all hands on deck,” Nathan said looking apologetically at Lexi too, but she just nodded and grabbed her shoes. 

“We’ll meet you there,” she promised and Nathan practically ran out the door. They were about ten minutes behind him and Lexi rode with Duke. She jumped in to help keep people calm and give first aid while Duke shuttled them out of the area to more solid ground and they didn’t see much of Nathan who was trying to coordinate things as best he could, though they did check in a few times over the course of the day. 

By the time they got home, it was after dark and they were both exhausted and filthy. “As much as I would love to double up in the shower, in the interests of time and exhaustion…” Duke gestured to his boat. 

“Yeah. That’s probably smart tonight. You’ll come back after though?” she asked hopefully. 

“Anytime you want,” Duke promised pulling her in for a lingering kiss before they went their separate ways. By the time Lexi came out of the shower, Duke was sitting on the couch and offered her a nightcap and she curled up to his side with a tired sigh. It was only about ten minutes before they headed to bed, this time just to sleep. 

Lexi was more than glad that she and Duke hadn’t been up to sex when she woke up in the morning. As bad as it was waking up in a strange place in her pajamas it would have been worse if she was naked. She headed out and started walking, having been in worse situations than this and just wanting to figure out what was going on. When Duke got out of the cop car, with a badge and police issue gun, she couldn’t help laughing. “Is this a joke?” 

“I don’t know. You tell me. You’re the one walking around in your pajamas with no shoes on,” Duke said amusedly. “You okay? You need some help?” 

Lexi quickly figured out that this was some kind of Haven thing. Even if Duke would go to such lengths to mess with her, there would at least be a glint of mischief in his eyes, but there was nothing. He didn’t even recognize her. This was okay. She could roll with the punches. She was good at that. “I wouldn’t mind a ride into town or something. I was camping in the woods and got mugged…” she said hesitantly. 

Duke nodded slowly. That explained it. And she was probably on the verge of hysterical and just so glad to see someone hence the laughter. Maybe she even thought she was hallucinating. Who knew what the poor girl had been through. “Okay. It’s okay. Why don’t you just hop in the car and we can take you down to the station and get a report,” he suggested gently. 

“Yeah, okay. That would be great. Thank you so much,” she said relieved. Hopefully she could find some way to fix all this and get home there. As hot as Duke looked as a cop, she didn’t think she could live with this version of him for too long. He was entirely too…wholesome. Innocent even. On the way to the station he asked her questions about what happened and what she could remember about the guy who mugged her and she didn’t hesitate to give William’s description. If he was here at all, it wasn’t like he didn’t deserve to be harassed by the cops. They ended up making a stop so that Duke could take a report about vandalism and he grabbed her some shoes and a new shirt at the gift shop while they were there. Once he got a report filled out, he took her to the hospital to be checked over and gave her his number in case she needed anything. 

Lexi was more than surprised to find Nathan as a doctor there…with a different last name, but she figured he must have been raised by his biological father here so it made sense that he was so different. By the time she was leaving and saw how peaceful and happy everyone was here, she was doubting her decision to fix it, but then William showed up to taunt her and it was clear that he wouldn’t let it stay like this anyway even if he had to take out half the town to change it back. That didn’t mean that she was actually going to help him though. By the time she made it to the phone to call Duke and let him know that the man who had mugged her followed her to the hospital, William had already left. 

On the plus side, it got Duke to put her into protective custody. Right by his side. Since her story had checked out, Duke easily accepted the explanation of William trying to set her up to get her away from her protection when he found her hair on Dave’s body and he doubled the protection on her. When she got the call from William, ordering her to ditch the cops and find the troubled person who caused this or Nathan’s family would die, she didn’t have much choice. She couldn’t just let innocent people die. Luckily she had a lot of experience ditching cops and slipped out the bathroom window. It didn’t take her long to figure it out. She just had to follow the vandalism once she recognized Suzy on the signs and remembered her being hurt badly in the volcano. She hadn’t realized that Duke had tagged her with a tracker just in case William got to her until he drove up while she was talking to Cliff. 

Lexi also didn’t realize that William had ordered Nathan to follow her and bring Cliff to him until they drove off while she was trying to explain to Duke. It had taken a bit of an argument to get him to take her along, but in the interest of time, he didn’t have much choice and William didn’t hesitate to shoot him. If Lexi hadn’t already hated him with a passion she definitely would now. He wouldn’t even let her go to Duke while he was bleeding out on the ground. Once William shot Cliff, Lexi jolted upright in her bed next to Duke again. “Lex, sweetheart…I think it would really help if you talk about these nightmares,” Duke said gently rubbing her back through the initial panic like he did every night. 

Lexi just turned and kissed him desperately before saying, “This one wasn’t a nightmare. It was…a Haven thing,” she explained. 

“What kind of Haven thing?” he asked worriedly, sitting straight up. 

“A wish trouble. Haven had never been troubled. Everything was so different…Cliff. We have to check on Cliff. If William gets to him here too…”

“Okay, okay,” Duke rubbed her arms. “Just calm down. I’ll call Nate and get him looking for this Cliff guy, okay?” He put the call through and then handed her the phone. She knew more details that Nathan would need. Once she had given him everything she knew and hung up the phone, Duke said, “It’s a little after four. You wanna go back to sleep or are you up?” 

“I don’t think I can go back to sleep right now,” she said apologetically. Not after watching Duke die like that. “You go ahead though,” she said with another lingering kiss before she got out of bed. 

“No, I’m good,” he told her getting up too and going to start some coffee. They had crashed pretty early last night after the exhaustion of the day and he was usually up with the sun anyway. Once they were seated on the couch with their very spiked coffees, Duke asked, “You want to tell me about it?” 

“You died,” she said with a shudder. “William shot you. Like it was nothing. He said…that you weren’t real anyway so it didn’t matter, but it did. You weren’t /you/. You weren’t /my/ Duke, but…I still…”

“Hey, shh. It’s okay. I’m right here and I’m fine,” he said softly, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her to his side comfortingly. He couldn’t have imagined having to watch her die, real or not. It would have gutted him. 

She really needed to get her mind off that so found something else to tell him. “You were a cop there. A detective. It was weird.”

“Sounds like it,” Duke shook his head amusedly. “What did you think of cop me?” he asked curiously. 

“He was like you in a lot of ways. Sweet, helpful, protective…but he was entirely too…I don’t know…soft I guess would be the right word. He was…so innocent and just…not you,” she shook her head. 

“So you prefer this me then?” Duke asked, hating the little bit of insecurity that crept into his voice with that question. 

“Most definitely,” she said emphatically. “Though you do clean up nice,” she teased once she knew that he believed that. 

Duke barked a laugh and kissed her head before draining the last of his coffee and getting up to get them both refills. He waited until they were settled again before getting back to the bad parts. “So, William was there too?” 

“Yeah. He wanted to change it back. Said that world was too boring. He wasn’t /completely/ wrong about that part, but I would have preferred to spice things up without the troubles and all the death and destruction they bring.”

“So you wanted to stay?” Duke figured from the way she said it and tried not to be hurt by the idea. 

“Yes and no,” she shrugged. “I mean, people weren’t dying all the time and everyone was happy. Especially you. But I would never have fit there. And the idea of seeing that version of you all the time and not being able to be with the real you…I couldn’t have lived with that.” If that world had stayed, she would have left town. 

“Yeah, I can understand that,” Duke agreed. “It does sound like a nice fantasy though.” 

“It was,” Lexi sighed, snuggling tighter against his side. “But I’ll take a reality with you over a nice fantasy any day,” she couldn’t help but say in almost a whisper. 

“Me too,” Duke replied just as softly leaning his head against hers falling that last little bit over the edge of in love with her. 

Their nice moment was interrupted by a knock on the door and Duke couldn’t help but huff as he got up to answer the door. “Do you live here now?” Nathan asked amusedly as Duke let him in. 

Duke just laughed and shook his head as they moved to the kitchen table. “What’d you find?” 

“Suzy died of complications last night,” Nathan addressed them both. “We found Cliff shot dead. William got to him before he could untrouble Haven again.”

“He can’t get away with this,” Lexi said coldly. She would never get the image of Duke dying out of her head. 

“Well we know he’s somewhere in Haven. Did you find out anything new about him?” Nathan asked. 

“No, nothing,” Lexi shook her head. When Duke raised an eyebrow, easily seeing through the lie, she gave him a look that promised full disclosure later, cutting her eyes towards Nathan to signify she didn’t want him to know. Nathan obviously noticed the exchange, but knew that if whatever it was would help them find William she would share so he let it go. “But…” she remembered. “Detective Crocker did find fiberglass under the nails of William’s last victim. Industrial grade. Like boat repair stuff.” 

That got them all looking for a probable hideout and Duke steered them towards a place that was actually a cover which meant it would be vacant right now and for once Lexi was more than glad to do the cop thing and gladly accepted a gun from Duke before they left. William came out like he was waiting for them when they got there and he drawled, “Well, I thought you'd wanna finish our conversation…Just didn't think we'd have an audience.

“I didn't come here to talk,” Lexi snapped. 

“You don't wanna shoot me,” William said amusedly. 

“Hey, pal. She really does,” Duke chimed in, hating the way this guy looked at her just as much as how much he’d hurt her. 

“But not for the reason you think,” William smirked. “Let me guess. You didn't tell 'em. Well, they have a right to know. Don't you think? About us?

“Shut up!” Lexi yelled, trying to get up the nerve to shoot. She’d never shot anyone before, but this was one time she wanted nothing more and apparently Nathan and Duke were giving her first chance. 

“I like you guys,” William said to Duke and Nathan. “So I'm gonna tell you everything you wanna know about who she is and what she's done…Sorry. What /we/ did. Together. 'Cause we are so connected.” 

That was the last straw for Lexi who shot him in the stomach before gasping and falling herself. “No!” Duke cried out as he rushed to her side and fell to his knees. “Lexi. What the…” he noticed the wound. “It’s okay. You're all right, babe,” he tried to convince them both of that. 

“What the hell's happening?” Nathan asked worriedly looking between Lexi and William. “It's the same wound,” he realized. “They /are/ connected.”

“No…Lex…come on sweetheart. Stay with me,” Duke said as he put pressure on her wound and Nathan pulled out his phone to call an ambulance, moving to William to put pressure on his in hopes that it would help Lexi too.


	8. Chapter 8

Both Lexi and William were rushed into surgery as soon as they got there, leaving Nathan and Duke to pace in the waiting room, both covered in blood. Jennifer came rushing in not long after they got there asking how Lexi was, but halfway through the update, Nathan got a call about a case and had to go. Someone stealing hearts trumped waiting around for news and Jennifer and Duke were left alone. When Duke’s voice started to shake as he told her what happened, Jennifer wrapped him in a tight hug. “I wish there was something I could do,” she said sadly. 

“Maybe there is,” Duke pulled back to look at her. “If anyone knows about this connection between Lexi and William it’s Vince and Dave…”

“Consider it done. I’ll have them singing like canaries,” Jennifer promised, turning to head out, glad to have a job. She stopped before she got far though. “Call me if there’s any news?” 

“I will,” he promised before he returned to his pacing. 

He refused to leave the hospital until they found out that whatever was running around stealing hearts was after Jennifer and the Lexi all but kicked him out. “You need to protect Jennifer,” she told him. “I’ll be fine here. It’s not like William could actually hurt me anyway apparently. Just keep her safe.” 

“I hate leaving you like this,” Duke said sadly. 

“I know. And you definitely get points for that. And for how long you’ve been here already,” she teased. “But you’ll start losing points if you don’t go protect my best friend.” 

Duke chuckled amusedly and leaned over for a lingering kiss. “Be safe,” he whispered, three other words on the tip of his tongue but he didn’t want to be cliché and say them right now with her in a hospital bed. Not to mention it would seem too much like a goodbye. Besides, he’d just figured it out right before all this happened and he still needed a chance to come to terms with it himself before blurting it out. 

“You too,” she returned, holding the same three words back. If she hadn’t already fallen in love with him, waking up with him at her bedside would have done it, but she knew better than to say it first. It never boded well for the girl to say it first. By that night she felt as good as new and was completely healed, baffling the doctors to no end, but they still wanted to keep her overnight for observation. She had enough experience with doctors and hospitals to not bother fighting them on it. Especially since leaving would distract Duke from protecting Jennifer. 

It was almost midnight and she was bored out of her mind when her attention was drawn by the sound of her door slowly creaking open. She grinned when she saw Duke’s eyes light up at seeing her awake and only the finger to his lips kept her from saying something as he and Jennifer crept silently inside, closing the door back carefully. Once the got over to the bed, she asked in an amused whisper, “What are you doing?” 

“They weren’t going to let us in…stupid visiting hours,” Jennifer grumbled. “But we had to let you know that everything is okay now and look…I have a magic book.” 

“It even killed the monster,” Duke chuckled. 

Lexi laughed and took the book to look at it. “Audrey had this book for a while. She gave it to Agent Howard. How is it magic?” 

“You can’t see it either?” Jennifer asked curiously. “I thought if anyone could see it it would be you.”

“See what?” Lexi asked confused. 

“The guard symbol. It’s glowing. And see here…the riddle. In times of great evil, the child of ruin must find the heart of Haven and summon the door.” 

“Yeah, I see nothing. It must be meant only for you,” Lexi told her as the door opened again, more normally this time and the nurse stepped inside. 

Duke and Jennifer quickly crouched down on the opposite side of the bed and the nurse rolled her eyes. “I’m not an idiot you know,” she said amusedly. “I saw you two sneaking in here and I gave you a few minutes, now out.” 

“Yeah, I should get going anyway. Dwight doesn’t want me to be alone tonight so he’s waiting outside for me,” Jennifer said leaning down to hug Lexi tightly. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

“Thanks Jen. Me too,” Lexi hugged her back before she scurried out the door. 

Once she was gone the nurse looked expectantly at Duke who just crossed his arms and smirked. “Lady the only way you’re getting me out of here is if you knock me out and drag me out, and given that you would end up having to keep me here to watch me anyway, it would be rather counterproductive for you to do so.” 

She gave Duke her patented tough nurse glare, surprised when he didn’t budge. It had never failed to work before. Eventually she gave up and huffed. “Fine. But I’m not bringing you a bed and you better keep the noise level down and let her rest or I’ll knock you out anyway.” 

“Fair enough,” Duke gave her a mocking salute and she turned and stormed out the door making Lexi burst into quiet laughter. 

“Here. The bed is a little small, but I think we can both fit,” she tried to scooch to the side. 

“I’m pretty sure that would get me the needle,” Duke chuckled. “I can just sleep in the chair. Wouldn’t be the worst place I’ve ever slept and I’m sure you’ll make it up to me later,” he grinned. 

“You bet I will,” she promised with a grin of her own. He leaned down for a long slow kiss before turning the chair around so that he could sit back in it and still hold her hand. He pulled her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it before he closed his eyes and she did the same with a happy smile on her face. Everyone was okay and Duke was here. She could sleep now. The nurse couldn’t help but smile when she peeked in a little later to find Duke’s head resting against Lexi’s on her pillow and their hands intertwined between them. 

The next morning they were both woken up by the doctor coming in to check on her. He asked Duke to step outside so he could examine Lexi, but Lexi just grabbed Duke’s hand before he could go and told the doctor she wanted him to stay, so Duke sat back down. The exam was brief and just involved making sure she was still okay and a lot of confusion about how, but he promised to go process her release paperwork and that she would be free to go in a couple hours. As soon as they were alone again, Duke moved the chair back up to the bed and took Lexi’s hand. “So now that we have a minute…you want to tell me what kind of information you got from William that you didn’t want Nathan to know about?” 

Lexi sighed and nodded. “Yeah, okay,” she agreed before leaning close and saying in almost a whisper, just in case anyone was listening. “I was the one who created the troubles. The original me, I mean. With William. That’s why I was the one in the barn who had to keep cleaning up the mess.”

Duke’s eyes widened with horror and Lexi flinched away from him. Duke was quick to reassure her though. “No, Lex. It wasn’t you. It wasn’t your fault. Don’t ever think that I blame you, okay?” 

“How can you not?” she asked sadly as she pulled her knees to her chest. 

“Because you’re not her any more than you’re Audrey or Lucy or Sarah. You’re Lexi. And Lexi would never hurt people like that,” Duke told her earnestly as he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her into his arms. When he felt her relaxing he teased, “For someone who’s so intent on being seen as separate from her previous personalities, you sure are quick to take the blame for one of them.”

Lexi chuckled and leaned her head on his shoulder. “You’re right,” she admitted. It was a little different since that was her true personality not just an implanted one, but he was still right. “I’m not her. Not anymore. And I never will be again. Just…still don’t tell anyone else?” 

“You have my word,” Duke vowed. Most people tended to be more than a little unreasonable about the troubles and if this got out, then it could be a disaster for her, regardless of the fact that she wasn’t at fault. “Anything else you need to tell me about all this?” He was taking full advantage of the little bit of trouble free time they got. 

“The nightmares I’ve been having…they’re not nightmares really. I mean, they are, but I think they’re real too. Just flashes of memories and feelings. Nothing concrete, but…I think it’s her. My original self,” Lexi admitted. 

“And it’s bad enough to be considered nightmares?” Duke asked worriedly, holding her tighter and just getting a nod in response. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?” 

“Because there’s nothing to say really,” she shrugged. “I mean, nothing is in any kind of focus and there aren’t exactly any details or anything to tell.” 

“Yeah, okay. I get that. But, Lexi…” He tilted her head up to look at him. “Even if there isn’t much to say, I’m still here, you know? For anything that you can or want to talk about.” 

“I know,” she smiled lovingly at him and leaned up for a kiss. “And thank you for that.” 

“Always,” he promised as he brushed his hand down her cheek. “Now come on. Let’s get you dressed so we can skedaddle soon as the doc gets back.” 

No sooner than she had gotten dressed, one of the nurses came in with a plate of breakfast, but Lexi declined. “I’ll be out of here soon and we can grab some breakfast then.” Anything to avoid the hospital food she’d been eating for the last day and a half. 

Once they finally left, Duke took them to the bakery and grabbed a variety of different pastries. When Lexi looked at him curiously, he told her, “I offered one of my safe houses for the night for Jennifer and Dwight and if I know them the place is going to be surrounded with cops and probably Nathan too. I promised to go by there this morning anyway and I thought you might want to check in on Jennifer.” 

“One of your safe houses?” Lexi asked in surprise. 

“Don’t worry. I made sure it was one where nothing illegal was stored. I’m not an idiot,” Duke chuckled, pulling the same from Lexi. 

Obviously they had no problem getting through the barricade even without the bribe of pastries and Lexi rushed over to hug Jennifer while Duke passed out the rest of them, getting somewhat gruff thanks from Nathan and Dwight before the radio interrupted them. “Perimeter's all clear, Nathan. You got to admit, this place is easy to defend. We can see anyone coming.”

“That's exactly why I use this place,” Duke said somewhat smugly. “I mean, for business. But mostly as a space of, like, reflection and solitude,” he added at the looks on the cops’ faces. 

Nathan rolled his eyes as he said over the radio. “Stan, remember, if you see William, you do not shoot.”

They could all hear the weariness in Stan’s voice as he replied, “Copy…All due respect, boss, for, like, the 16th time.”

“I'm reminding myself, too,” Nathan just said simply. 

“I don't think that William's coming,” Lexi told them. “I think that maybe because Jennifer has that book, he can't hurt her.”

Duke scoffed as he muttered, “The book is a book like the barn was a barn. It's some kind of otherworldly instruction manual that Jennifer and only Jennifer can use to summon the door between two worlds.”

“I think that book exists to deal with William,” Lexi told them. “That's why his rougarou died when he touched it.

“That book is showing us how to get rid of him,” Duke realized. 

“So we find the door between the two worlds and we shove him right through,” Lexi agreed.

“And lock the bastard out for good,” Nathan nodded. “Well, that explains why William wants you dead,” he told Jennifer. 

“I'm gonna have to start calling you Obi-Wan,” Duke joked. “You're our only hope.”

“Duke's right,” Lexi said amusedly. “You're the only one that can banish William from this world. But I think now that he knows that you have that book, he's gonna try to step up his plan.

“Okay,” Jennifer said nervously as she screwed up her courage for her role in this plan. “So…step one…find the heart of Haven. Anyone?”

“Yeah, we never heard of it,” Dwight said with a shake of his head. 

They were interrupted by Nathan and Dwight’s phones going off. 

“Three dead bodies,” Lexi said wearily looking over Nathan’s shoulder. 

“It's got to be William,” Nathan said before turning to Jennifer. “You find that door, we won't have to deal with this much longer.”

“I’m coming with you,” Lexi said as Nathan and Dwight went to leave. 

“Then so am I,” Duke decided. 

“No, Duke. Dwight’s the chief of police. He /has/ to go. But someone has to stay with Jennifer and help her,” Lexi told him. 

“Then why do you have to go?” Duke asked. 

“Because this is a trouble and I help with the troubles. And I understand William better than the rest and I’m the only one he can’t hurt,” Lexi told him as she leaned down for a kiss. “I’ll be okay. Just help Jennifer so we can end this.” She knew that Duke wasn’t really the over-protective type usually, but it was kicking into overdrive thanks to her near-death experience and hospital stay. 

Duke gave a resigned nod and looked at Nathan. “Nate…”

“I’ll watch her back,” Nathan promised. 

Lexi gave Duke one more quick kiss before following Nathan out, Dwight already on the way to the station to coordinate and Duke and Jennifer got back to work. “Are you sure the book's not telling you anything else?” Duke asked hoping for a place to start. 

“I think it only reveals instructions one at a time,” Jennifer said apologetically. “Right now all it says is, ‘Find the heart of Haven,’ and I turn the page, and it's just The Guard symbol that sort of fades in and out.”

“Fading in and out,” Duke was getting an idea. Not necessarily a good one, but better than just sitting here spinning their wheels. 

“Yeah,” Jennifer said questioningly. 

“I know somebody with a Guard tattoo that does the exact same thing,” he told her. “Come on.” It was time to pay Vince a visit.

When William demanded that Lexi come with him alone, Nathan tried to argue, but Lexi wouldn’t hear of it. He just hoped that Duke wouldn’t end up killing him over this one. 

Lexi couldn’t deny that being alone with William scared her. Not because of what he could do to her, but about what he could bring out of her. That didn’t make this any less necessary. “So Lexi DeWitt thinks I'm evil,” William said amusedly. “Well, she's just a shell. And I want to free you from that prison.”

That would happen over her dead body. “Just tell me how to stop this trouble that you caused,” she said impatiently. 

“That I caused?” William laughed. “That's charming. You caused it. I just tweaked it.” He stopped walking and turned to look at her. “It was always your favorite, 'cause it was just so darn deadly.”

“I don't believe you,” she lied. Unfortunately from the little bit she’d gotten from that version of herself she could believe it all too easily, but maybe he would let more information slip if he was trying to convince her. 

“No? Well, here's the plan for today…I'm gonna introduce you to a troubled person. You're gonna see that the usual tricks don't work, and then…here's the best part…you're gonna have to give someone a new trouble to fix things,” he smirked. 

“You want me to give someone a trouble?” she asked disgustedly, forcing down her panic as her nightmares seemed to be coming to life. 

“Yes, it'll be like sleeping in your own bed again, and I'm betting, when you do, you're gonna remember who you are,” William said smugly. 

“How does me giving someone a trouble fix the one that's already killing people?” Lexi asked, swallowing the bile in her throat from just talking about it. 

“Well, we used to set up complementary troubles to see how they'd interact…fire and ice, that sort of thing. 

“Jordan caused pain…and Nathan can't feel her,” Lexi realized. 

“And this one is a sound trouble, so you're gonna have to make…” 

“A silence one,” Lexi sighed. 

“Bam. She's a natural,” William chuckled. 

“I will /never/ give a trouble to solve a trouble,” Lexi snapped. “I'll find another way.” There had to be another way. 

“No, you won't,” William taunted as he pointed out the baby under the gazebo. 

Lexi saw the handprint on his back and gasped. “No…You didn't…” 

“I’m sure you’ve heard the saying that when a baby laughs a fairy is born…well here…when a baby cries…oops,” William laughed as a person across the park dropped dead when the baby started to cry. “You were always such a clever troublemaker.” 

Lexi called Nathan to meet her before they went to talk to the baby’s parents. It made it easier when they knew about the family curse and they learned just how William had tweaked it since it wasn’t supposed to start before puberty. The more she learned the more frazzled she got. She was getting nowhere with finding another way and that baby was going to start crying again any minute. If she could just find a pattern. She left Nathan to deal with the cop part and she headed to the Herald, calling Duke on the way. She needed him more than ever right now. She just hoped that they weren’t too busy.


	9. Chapter 9

Lexi had gone through most of the papers from that time period by the time Duke came in. “So what's so important that you couldn't tell me about it on the phone?”

“Gloria's right…it's completely random…I can't stop the Harker curse. I never could. I faced it before, and I failed. Now, in about 25 minutes, that baby wakes up, starts killing people,” she said brokenly. 

Duke went over and sat on the desk in front of her, reaching a hand to her shoulder and brushing his thumb over her cheek as he tried to help her work it out. “All right, so the going theory is that William's giving out troubles because he thinks the original Lexi liked it. And he wants you to remember her,” he tried to reason. 

“And now he wants me to do it again. He wants me to create a silence trouble that will stop these deaths and save the baby,” 

“Oh. So you called me down here to grant you permission to give someone a trouble?” Duke asked incredulously. “Lexi, you can never do that, no matter what happens. He is trying to get you to shove that needle back into your vein…There's no recovering from that.” He had enough experience with this sort of thing to know this and the idea of losing her to that was the most terrifying thing that he could ever imagine. 

“You don't trust me to hold on to who I am?” she asked, almost hurt. 

“I don't trust the troubles.” Duke wanted that made very clear. “They are deep and dark, and they take the people you love away…”

“No one's taking Lexi away,” Nathan said seriously as he walked in, missing the dirty look from Duke and not realizing the moment that he had just interrupted. “Do it,” he told Lexi. “Trouble whoever you need to to make this stop. I know you're strong enough. You're not gonna turn into whoever William wants you to.” He tried to give her a good pep talk. Whether any of them liked it or not, this was the only way. 

“I believe in you, Lexi…But if you turn back into some female version of William...If that happens, forget the troubles, forget babies that kill people. We are screwed on a whole other level,” Duke argued. 

Lexi took a few deep breaths as she set her decision in stone. “I know,” she whispered, leaning forward and putting her forehead against Duke’s. “You’re right.” If there was one thing she knew from her nightmares it was that her original self was far worse than all the troubles combined. “And that’s why I want you there when I do this.”

“What? How can you…” Duke gasped, pulling away to look her in the eye. 

“There isn’t another way,” she told him. “It’s this or kill the baby and I can definitely not live with myself if I kill a baby. But you…you’re my anchor, Duke. If I’m gonna beat this thing and come out on top, I need you there by my side.” 

Neither of them noticed Nathan step out to give them some privacy as Duke swallowed heavily and lost himself in her eyes. “And if you don’t beat it? If you become her…” Please god don’t let her ask what he thought she was going to ask of him. 

“Then you’re the only one with a chance of bringing me back. Lock me up, whatever you need to do until you get me back,” she told him. She could see the tension fade from his shoulders and realized what he had thought she was going to ask him to do. She would never ask that of him though. Especially not after Wade. If that was an option, she would make sure that he was far away from the whole thing. Killing her would completely destroy him and she would never do that to him. 

“Okay. I’ll be there. I’ll do whatever you need me to do,” he vowed as he reached up to cup her cheek. He’d wanted to wait for a better time to tell her this, but they were running out of time. If it gave her even one more ounce of strength to fight, he had to do it. “I love you, Lexi. And I won’t let you go without a fight.” 

Lexi’s eyes filled with tears as she leaned into his touch. “I love you too, Duke,” she whispered. “And that’s why we’ll win.” 

“God, I hope you’re right,” Duke breathed out, pulling her into a passionate kiss. 

“Me too,” she said as they separated. “Come on. I need to talk to William.” 

Nathan came with them, but she made them both wait at the truck while she went to talk to him. This part she had to do alone. “I knew you'd come find me here. It's our place,” William said smugly. So, you ready to give someone a trouble?”

“No. I’m gonna have to kill the baby,” she lied. She had to at least /try/ to make him back down and fix this on his own before taking this step. 

“That's not what I was expecting,” William said surprised before it dawned on him. “Oh...You're bluffing,” he chuckled. “Okay. You want to see what I'll do? Let me be plain…The Harker clan is large. Baby Aaron has eight cousins under the age of 10. If you kill that baby...I'll activate each and every last one of them.”

“And you’d do it, too,” she curled her lip disgustedly. 

“Because you're important and because I love you, I have to corner you into making a trouble,” he tried to explain. 

“All right...I'll do it,” she sighed in defeat. 

“You have no idea how happy this makes me,” William said with a grin. 

“This ain’t about you,” Lexi snapped. 

“Oh, don't ruin the moment,” William chided her. 

“Just tell me what I need to do,” Lexi said wearily. 

“Giving someone a trouble requires an alchemy of three things. First, a strong intention. What kind of curse do you want? Use your imagination. Two, the person you choose is key. I mean, who are they? Are they a good match for your intention? Now, the curse, or intention, is shaped in here,” he patted his heart. “You're giving them a release. It's a gift.”

“I’m never gonna believe that,” Lexi sneered. 

“Yeah, you will,” William assured her. “Finally...There's that black stuff you stole from me. Think of it as the breath of life. Put it in your hand, put your hand on a customer, and wait for the party.”

“Intention, person...and...black ball of stuff,” Lexi set the steps in her mind. 

“This is gonna be amazing,” William said excitedly. “I can't wait.”

“You ain’t invited,” Lexi told him with a wave of her hand. 

“How about a kiss for luck?” William asked hopefully. 

“Come any closer, I'll punch you in the face. It'll be worth my own black eye,” Lexi warned as she turned to leave. 

Once she got back to the truck, she told Duke that they needed to head back to her apartment to get the stuff. She made sure to speak vaguely in front of Nathan, but he knew what she meant. While they were on the way, she explained what she had to do. “Intention, person, evil black goo…You know, jacking up somebody's life shouldn't be this simple,” Duke grumbled. 

“But it's not that simple. Aaron's gonna wake up and cry at any minute, and I've got to come up with some kind of silence trouble. What's that mean, okay? What's my intention?” She needed their help to get this right. 

“The D.O.A. at the warehouse, right before he died, he said he heard a baby cry. That's five miles away,” Nathan pointed out. 

“So the sound travels supernaturally. It's still just sound,” Duke said as they pulled up at the Gull. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” He knew that Lexi wouldn’t be able to find it again. She hadn’t been watching that closely when he hid it and someone had to keep Nathan busy so he wouldn’t see the hiding place. He was back a few minutes later and handed her the box. When Nathan was about to ask about it, Duke got back on the subject to derail him. “So...You want to give somebody, what, a ‘bubble of silence’ curse, and then stick the baby inside of it so that the…the evil sound never leaves its throat?” 

“A troubled version of cutting his vocal cords,” Nathan shrugged as they pulled out heading for the Harker’s. 

“But not as cruel,” Lexi nodded. 

“Okay, I wasn't really suggesting that…” Duke tried to stop the train of thought, despite the fact that he couldn’t think of anything better. 

“Okay, but who do I trouble? Help me think,” Lexi tried to remind Duke that she needed his help and to stop judging. “Troubles are always related to the people that have them.”

“Right, Jack Driscoll was a deep-sea diver. He developed a crazy pressure trouble,” Nathan reasoned. When he noticed the amused look on Duke’s face he asked, “What?”

“Well, you weren't exactly the most emotionally-expressive kid in school. Now you're numb,” Duke pointed out. 

“You're a sponge,” Nathan huffed, offended. 

“Wasn't derogatory,” Duke threw up his hands in surrender. 

Lexi tried to bring them back on track…again. “Okay. Who can best manifest this bubble of silence?”

“Maybe somebody who's mute?” Nathan suggested. 

“Yeah…Or someone who can barely hear,” Lexi got an idea as they drove up to the Harker’s and saw Lincoln trimming the hedges. 

Talking Lincoln into it was relatively easy, but Gloria took a little more doing and still only agreed grudgingly. Much like Duke. Unfortunately it backfired big time and amplified all sound and set the baby off again and Lexi and Ben rushed the baby outside while Nathan and Duke tried to help Lincoln and Gloria. The managed to get the baby calmed down with his bottle just as William walked up and Lexi told Ben to stay put while she went to talk to him. “Please...tell me your name,” William said hopefully. 

“Lexi DeWitt,” she smirked at him. 

“Damn. I-I-I really...Nevermind,” he gave a tense chuckle. “We’ll get through this. Um, what happened?” This was just a first step. They would get there. Eventually. 

“I did what you told me to do. I gave a sweet, old guy a trouble, and it didn't work,” she huffed. 

“But you gave him a trouble?” William asked gleefully. 

“Yes,” Lexi ground out. “Instead of eliminating sound, it made everything sound strange.”

“But it's pretty great,” William grinned. “I mean, your first try, after all these years, you made a sound-related trouble?” That had to mean something. “When you did it, did you feel anything?”

“I felt awful. And I didn't even help the baby,” she said hatefully. 

“Try again, and you will get it right,” he told her. “Troubles are more of an art than a science. That's why we like them so much.” He looked over and smirked. “Look, that baby's almost done his bottle, and I know Lexi DeWitt wants to help. You're close, I promise. Keep going.” Close to what he didn’t say, but couldn’t resist a parting shot. “And when you're back, you're gonna kick yourself for not having more fun.”

She watched him go wishing so much that she could just hit him and knock that smug ass smirk off his stupid face. When she turned back towards the house, she saw Duke walking towards her. “Is Lincoln okay?” she asked worriedly. 

“Give me the box,” Duke said firmly holding out his hand. 

“I have to keep trying,” Lexi argued. Otherwise all this would have been for nothing. Lincoln would have had his life ruined for nothing. She couldn’t let that happen. 

“You know, I'm fine if you want to lie to that scumbag, but you're not gonna lie to me,” Duke told her almost coldly. 

“Lie about what?” Lexi said confused. She hadn’t even told him anything yet. 

“You felt her. You felt your original self...And you liked it,” Duke said trying to keep the fear out of his voice. That moment when he could see someone very much not Lexi shining in her eyes was the most terrified he’d ever been in his life. He didn’t care how many people died, losing her in the process was never going to be an acceptable risk to him. 

“I never intended to lie to /you/ Duke,” she assured him. “It was…awful. It was like the worst jolt of just…evil…when I touched him,” she admitted. “And yeah, some deep part of me liked it.”

“That’s why you can’t do this. The temptation is too much,” he said desperately, taking her hands in his, resisting the urge to just rip the box from her hands. She had to give it up herself or it would never work. “He will get you back. You won’t be Lexi DeWitt anymore and you won’t care…but I do care,” he said gently as he lifted a hand to her cheek. “I love you, Lexi and I can’t let you do this.” 

Lexi tucked the box under one arm and reached the other hand up to brush Duke’s hair back. “I’ll be okay, Duke,” she promised. “I’m no stranger to dealing with my dark side any more than you are. I can’t run away from this. How can I justify what I did to Lincoln if I just give up now?” 

“Lex…please…” Duke breathed out. 

“I’ll be okay, Duke,” she told him again. “Because I love you. And as long as I have that to hold onto, I can’t fall too far into the darkness. And as long as I have you to bring me back…I’ll never be lost.” 

“Please, let’s just…try to find another way,” Duke begged. 

“Okay,” Lexi agreed. “But I am not gonna hurt that baby.” That would never be an option. 

“No. You’re not,” Ben said as he walked up before he looked at Duke. “You’re going to hurt me.” When they just looked dumbfounded at him, he explained. “I know about the Crocker curse. Kill me.” 

“Okay, Ben, listen, that's really noble of you, but…” Lexi started only to be cut off by Duke. 

“Hang on,” Duke stopped her before turning to Ben. “Are you sure about that?”

“Am I sure I want to leave my son without any parents? No. But I don't know another way,” Ben sighed. “I'm sure she didn't tell you, but Gloria considered the Crocker family curse a great blessing.”

“Why?” Duke asked incredulously. 

“It cured her family of the trouble,” Ben told him. “One of your ancestors killed one of hers. I want to take this trouble to the grave.”

Duke sighed and nodded. “All right. Take the baby up to the house. We'll meet you there.”

Lexi looked at him with her mouth hanging open. “Are you crazy? You just told me that I shouldn't trouble anyone else, and now you want me to re-trouble you, give you the Crocker family curse so that you can kill that baby's father? No, we've done this before.” 

“Hey, I don't like it either,” Duke snapped. “But he is volunteering...And so am I,” he added in a whisper. “You can't go on troubling person after person until you get it right. Body count's just keep climbing. You /know/ me. You know my curse. I mean, just...one more hand slap, and we're done.” He tried to keep his voice steady. The idea of taking this back on scared the hell out of him, but the fewer people she troubled, the more likely he was to lose her. /Anything/ was better than that. I mean, it's...it's that, or you kill the baby.”

Lexi thought like mad to find another way and she was forced to admit that it was the best option, but she wanted one thing known first. “I am /only/ doing this because I /know/ that you can control your curse. Because I know you’re strong enough to handle it. I would never put this on you otherwise.”

“I know, sweetheart,” Duke said gently, pulling her into a soft kiss. “We’ll be okay, remember? Long as we love each other. Your words. You won’t let me fall any more than I’ll let you.” 

“Damn straight I won’t,” she vowed. Just before they headed back to the house, Lexi noticed Jennifer walking up and waved her over. She knew that it was a long shot, but she hoped that Jennifer had another way for them. Something that didn’t involve putting the weight of the world back on Duke’s shoulders. 

Jennifer did have something. Not enough to stop this mess, but hopefully enough to prevent any more. When she mentioned finding the four people to open the door, Lexi had this sinking feeling in her gut that it was a horrible idea, but she pushed it away. At least for now. She could consider it more later. For all she knew it was her original self just wanting to save William. When she’d troubled Lincoln she’d gotten a lot more than impressions this time. Like something was just lurking in the corner of her mind. Something that she couldn’t quite reach like words on the tip of her tongue. Maybe it was enough to give her that feeling to try and stop them from getting rid of him. 

Jennifer decided to stay for what was about to happen. She knew that Lexi would need her support and that doing this to Duke was going to hurt her more deeply than she was letting on. It seemed that she wasn’t the only one with that idea as they got up there to find Nathan, Gloria, and Ben gathered on the porch as well. Jennifer went to stand next to Nathan as Lexi took a few deep breaths before standing in front of Duke. 

“Are we doing this?” she asked, almost begging him to change his mind. 

“Yeah, we’re doing this,” Duke said as steadily as he could manage as his slightly shaking hands undid a few more buttons on his shirt and he pulled it open. Lexi crushed the black stuff in her hand and slowly reached out to his chest, giving him ample opportunity to stop her before it connected. Duke felt his heart turn to ice as the expression on her face changed and he could see the malicious glee settle in her eyes. He moved his hand up to grip her wrist, running his thumb over the back of her hand. “Lexi…babe…Don’t do this,” he pleaded. “Stay with me, Lex…I love you…” 

Lexi jolted like she’d been shocked and yanked her hand away from him. “Duke…” she breathed out. “I…it…she…”

Duke grabbed her and pulled her in for a tight hug and she buried her face in his chest. He ran a hand through her hair as he said, “Shh. It’s okay. I know. It’s over now. I’ve got you.” 

Lexi felt the tears leaking from her eyes as she clutched him tightly, trying to bring herself back under control and process what had just happened. It seemed like forever before she let go and stepped back and Nathan waited until then to ask, “Is it done?” 

“No,” Lexi shook her head. “No, I pulled it back.”

“But the baby…” Nathan started only to be shut up by a glare from Duke. 

“No, I know what I need to do,” Lexi said firmly as she got herself back under control. “I can get rid of /all/ the troubles.” 

There were a series of gasps, but Duke wasn’t so sure. He reached out and took her hands as he asked seriously, “At what cost?” 

“Is any price too high for that?” she asked. 

“Yes,” Duke said firmly. “I won’t lose you, Lexi, so if that’s the price of this…”

“It’s not,” she cut him off. “Probably,” she had to add. When he opened his mouth to argue she reached her hand to his cheek and covered his lips with her thumb. “I have to do this, Duke. And we just proved that you can bring me back…”

“This time, yeah, but you’re playing with fire here, Lex,” he tried to make her see that. 

“Duke…you risk your life all the time to save people from these troubles. Ben here…he’s willing to sacrifice his life to fix /one/ trouble. So was Jack. So do many people. How can I not risk everything to cure them all?” she asked gently. 

Duke’s face twisted in pain as he nodded slowly. “What do you need me to do?” he asked heartbrokenly. 

Lexi turned towards everyone, leaning back slightly against Duke’s chest. “I need everyone to stay quiet. I can’t have any distractions,” she told them, prompting Ben to pick up the baby and take him inside just in case. She reached back and grabbed Duke’s arms and wrapped them around her stomach, underneath her shirt for the skin contact as she told him, “I just need you to hold me.” She leaned her head back on his shoulder. “Remind me of what I’d be leaving behind. Give me something to stay for.” 

Duke squeezed her comfortingly and leaned his head against hers. “I’ll always give you something to stay for,” he whispered. “I love you, Lexi.” 

“I love you too, Duke,” she whispered back, turning her head for a gentle kiss. “You have always been my strength. Never forget that.” If the worst happened she needed him to know that. 

“You either,” he responded almost inaudibly. Lexi nodded and closed her eyes, mentally calling all the Aether in the world to her as she opened the box to receive it. She had a brief thought that she was glad that the box was bigger on the inside than the outside before she shoved the thought away and redoubled her concentration. 

Gloria’s hands clapped over her mouth to smother her gasp as little black balls of goo pulled from both Nathan and Jennifer’s chest, followed by two more coming from inside the house, all four of them settling in the box Lexi was holding and then there was a steady stream of the stuff flying through the air and they just kept coming. Thousands of them. Lexi’s eyes were closed, but the rest of them watched in silent awe. 

Duke was saying prayer after prayer that she would still be Lexi when this was done and focused every bit of love and strength he could her way as the stream kept coming and then slowed to a trickle and just as what seemed to be the last piece settled in the box, Lexi slumped in his arms and the box slammed shut. Duke lowered her gently to the ground and almost frantically checked her pulse and breathing as he called her name. “Is she…” Jennifer asked as tears filled her eyes. 

“She’s alive,” Duke breathed out in relief. 

“But is she still…Lexi,” Nathan reminded them of the big question. 

“If she’s not, she will be,” Duke said firmly, not willing to accept any other answer. 

“Come on. Let’s get her inside and on the couch. It’ll probably be more comfortable,” Gloria offered, tears filling her own eyes. 

“I should check in and let people know what happened. They’re probably pretty freaked out about the black stuff flying out of them and through the air,” Nathan said as he pulled out his phone and walked towards the yard. 

Duke just nodded as he picked Lexi up and carried her inside and he set her down gently on the couch, brushing her hair back from her face. “Come on, Lex. Wake up,” he whispered as he pressed a kiss to her lips.


	10. Chapter 10

Lexi groaned as her eye fluttered open and the first thing she saw was Duke kneeling over her. “Duke…” she breathed out in relief. 

“Lexi?” he asked hopefully as he searched her eyes and then grinned, giving her a hard happy kiss. “Lexi,” he said relieved. “Thank god.” 

“Yeah, it’s me,” she assured him as she sat up and pulled him next to her, relaxing into his arms for a moment before getting back to the important parts. “I have to go after William.”

“We’re not ready yet,” Jennifer chimed in. “We still have to find the fourth person for the door.”

“No, we can’t,” Lexi shook her head. “We can /never/ open that door.”

“Are we sure she’s still Lexi?” Gloria asked suspiciously. 

“I’m sure,” Duke didn’t hesitate to tell her before turning back to Lexi. “Why? The book says…”

“The book is a plant,” she told him. “We open that door, yeah we can get rid of William, but we let something far worse in instead.” 

“How do you know?” Jennifer asked. 

“Because I remember,” Lexi told them. “I know everything Mara knew and even she is terrified of what’s behind that door.” 

“Mara is…”

“My original self,” she told him. “Look, I promise I’ll explain everything later, but I have to get to William now. Before he realizes what’s happened and takes off. Then we will never get another chance.” 

“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Gloria said hesitantly. 

Lexi just met Duke’s eyes and asked him, “Trust me. Please.” 

Duke took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. Let’s go,” he said reaching out a hand for her. 

She was still a little unsteady on her feet and Duke had to help support her. “Just Duke and I,” she said when Jennifer tried to follow. “Tell Nathan too.” If she knew how to keep Duke from coming she would do that, but she knew a lost cause when she saw one.

They were in the truck on the way to the lookout when Duke asked, “Should we drop that box off somewhere first? I don’t think we want William getting his hands on it again.” 

“It’s useless to him now,” Lexi told him distractedly as she tried to process some of the memories that had invaded her mind. 

“Okay…” Duke said confusedly, but he would table that discussion for later. “So…you have all of her memories now? Like you have Audrey’s?” 

“Yeah, but unlike Audrey, I have her entire life. Over a hundred years. I’m blocking most of it out for now and just focusing on William and the troubles. Trying to get as much of that as I can before we get there.” 

“So shut up and let you process. Got it,” Duke chuckled tensely. 

She reached over and squeezed his hand gratefully, but didn’t say anything else as she worked her way through the memories and made a plan of action for dealing with William. Once they got there, she told him, “I need you to stay back while I talk to him.”

“No. Not gonna happen,” Duke shook his head. 

“If we go up there together, he’s going to know immediately that his plan didn’t work. It’s going to put him on the defensive,” Lexi told him. “You can wait in the woods. I’ll make sure we’re close enough that you can hear and jump in if things go bad.” 

“Okay,” Duke sighed. “But I’m taking the tranq gun too.” Lexi nodded and got out, carrying the box of Aether. She wasn’t letting it out of her sight until this was handled and she would need some of it if her plan was going to work. When he saw her with the Aether, he grabbed her wrist. “Lex…” he said gently as he turned her to look at him, searching her eyes again before nodding. “Be careful.” As long as she was still Lexi he trusted her, even if it meant taking that box to William, but if he’d seen any sign of someone else there he wouldn’t have allowed it. 

Duke positioned himself in the woods and Lexi moved out a little ways, just close enough that he could still hear. “You were right. I remember everything,” she told William. 

William spun around to look at her with a look of pure glee on his face and closed the few yards between them. “You do? All of it?”

“All of it,” she grinned maliciously, making him believe even more that she was Mara. Little did he know the maliciousness was directed towards him. She was about to let him know though. “She never loved you, you know.”

“/She/? What?” William asked as some of his glee left his face. 

“Mara. She never loved you,” Lexi told him. 

“You’re not…”

“I’m Lexi. And I will always /be/ Lexi. Because I’m stronger than her. Do you know why?” 

“Why?” William couldn’t help but ask despite being relatively sure that he didn’t want to know the answer. 

“The same reason that the barn was powered by love. Because the other world learned a long time ago that love is the most powerful substance in the universe. And it’s something that poor Mara just has none of. Especially not for you.” 

“You’re lying,” William said in denial. “You don’t remember everything. If you did…”

“Oh I remember a lot,” Lexi smirked. “I remember a pitiful man living here in this very village, latching onto the first person to show him kindness. A bitter man who wanted nothing more than to revenge himself on the village that ridiculed him. What was it they called you? Drunk Billy the Fool? They even had a song if I remember correctly. How did it go again? Oh yes…’If you ever meet drunk Billy the fool; remember is only friend is his trusty bar stool; if you spend your morning cleaning the drool; you know you’ve encountered drunk Billy the fool’” she sang mockingly. “There were quite a few verses. I could keep going…” 

“Stop it,” William snarled. “I showed them though. They saw who the fool was in the end.”

“Oh poor Billy the fool. You never stopped being the fool. It was so easy for her you know?” Lexi taunted. She had to get some part of him to want what was coming. To want to see the truth for himself. She had to push him to the brink. “Just a few kind words, a little flattery sprinkled in, gentle promises of revenge…that was all it took for her to get you hooked.”

“Why? What purpose could she have had for that?” William scoffed in disbelief. 

“Because she knew that she would be caught sooner or later and that she would be cut off from her precious Aether. That’s the only thing she ever loved. She needed someone who would stop at nothing to get her back. To reunite her with her Aether. And you were just broken enough for her to mold. But you were mortal, see. That didn’t fit her plans. So she tied your life force to hers. So that you would always be at her beck and call no matter how much time passed.” 

“She did that because she loved me and she didn’t want to lose me,” William snapped. “And now that you remember her, I know that I can get her back.” He raised a hand to call his Aether made goons, not noticing Duke raising the tranq gun in the forest, ready to shoot if needed. 

When nothing happened Lexi laughed. “You have power over the Aether because she /gave/ it to you. But it was always hers. That’s why you could never use it as easily or as broadly as she could. You don’t really think that she would give you that kind of power without the ability to take it away if you ever turned on her do you?” 

“You-you-you…” William stammered, trying to figure out what to do next. “You can’t break our link. You can’t hurt me. And I will still live forever. And I will never give up on getting her back.” 

“She always thought you were so pathetic, but it suited her purposes. Me? I just pity you. You’re right. I can’t break your link with /Mara/. But I can separate it from me.”

“How?” William asked suspiciously. When he noticed Lexi crushing a piece of Aether in her hand, he started to back away. 

“By giving you everything you want,” she smirked. “You want Mara, you can have her.” She reached out and grabbed his arm with her Aether filled hand. “This really is a powerful substance. There’s almost nothing it can’t do in the right hands.”

“What are you doing to me?” William asked fearfully as he tried to pull away, but the Aether was acting as a binding agent and he wasn’t strong enough. 

“I told you. I’m giving you Mara,” she grinned. “I sure as hell don’t want her in /my/ head.” Duke’s eyes widened as he watched, unable to believe what she was doing. “Call it a trouble if you want. A split personality trouble. Except this personality is real. You can spend the rest of your life communing with dear sweet Mara. You can learn the truth about how she felt about you and what she really thought. Oh, and the best part?” 

“Oh god…” William said with dread. 

“The best part is this link you have with her…goes with her, but the immortality…the connection to the Aether…that part is dependent on this body so…sucks to be you,” she finally let go of his arm sensing that the transfer was complete. “You’re just as mortal as you ever were and have no power over anyone anymore. Granted, you can’t be arrested for what you’ve already done. I could just imagine trying to explain all that to the courts, but trust me…one toe out of line from here on in…and you and Mara will be spending the rest of your vastly shortened lives communing behind bars. Or in a padded room. I’d imagine you’d get a choice when the time comes.” She looked back to the trees and motioned Duke to come out as William doubled over and grabbed his head in agony, physical, mental, or emotional, she wasn’t sure. Maybe it was even all three. When Duke came and wrapped his arms around her, she leaned against him. “In case you wonder how I won? This is how,” she grinned, leaning up for a quick kiss from Duke. “And you can just go back to being Drunk Billy the Fool,” she turned to leave, arm in arm with Duke before she stopped and turned back. “But I wouldn’t suggest drinking at the Gull. You won’t find the warmest of welcomes there.” 

As they got back to the truck, Duke looked at her in awe. “Remind me to /never/ piss you off. I never realized just how effectively words could be used as a weapon until now.” 

Lexi shrugged. “Something as major as transferring a full consciousness couldn’t be done if he wasn’t at least a little bit broken. Kind of like a crack to slip it in through.” 

“I get that,” Duke nodded. It had been beyond harsh. Cruel even. But sometimes such things were necessary. “Just to make sure I understand what just happened…he was already powerless when we got here since you took his ability to use the…Aether you called it?” 

“Yeah, but he was still immortal. As long as Mara was a part of this immortal body he would have stayed that way. And I really wasn’t looking forward to spending the rest of my existence fighting with Mara for control of this body. It was a win win.” 

“So…you’re immortal,” it dawned on Duke. 

“Apparently,” she shrugged. “Can you…live with that?” she asked biting her lip worriedly. 

“I can live with anything as long as I have you,” Duke assured her. “The bigger question is whether you can live with loving a mortal who’s gonna grow old and die one day.”

“You don’t have to /stay/ mortal. I could tie your life force to mine like Mara did with William. But that’s something to discuss much later. No matter what you decide it doesn’t change my answer though. I love you, Duke and I always will. No matter how long you live,” Lexi assured him reaching over to run a hand through his hair. 

Duke ignored the halfway offer for the future. They were a long way from planning for forever, and instead focused on the rest. He reached up and caught her hand, turning to kiss her palm without taking his eyes off the road. “Good. Because if you think I’m letting you go now that we finally have peace, you’re nuts.” 

Lexi laughed as she said, “Right back atcha.” 

As Duke pulled into the Gull, he asked, “Is there anything else we need to handle before we shut ourselves away and celebrate?” 

“Nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow,” she told him, making a show of pulling out her phone and turning it off and he grinned and did the same before they headed upstairs. There was a brief moment where Duke hid the box back in it’s hiding spot to be dealt with later and then he was torn between dinner and bed before deciding that bed would be more fun if they had more strength. They hadn’t eaten since breakfast and it was already nighttime after all. 

The next morning they woke up to a dozen voicemails each when they turned their phones back on and rather than go through it all a dozen times, they just invited Nathan, Gloria, Vince, Dave, Jennifer, and Dwight over for dinner that night so they could deal with it all at once and then let them tell whoever they needed to. Rather than squeeze everyone into Lexi’s apartment, Duke pulled out a long table and set it up on the deck of the Cape Rouge where there was plenty of room and most of the afternoon was spent cooking. Duke even let Lexi help with some of the preparation part. Just some. 

Everyone was patient enough to wait until dinner was on the table and they were all seated before bombarding them with questions. Barely. Duke ended up have to let out an ear-piercing whistle to get everyone to shut up. “How about you just let Lexi tell then story and then save questions for after?” 

Lexi told the whole story from the moment that she got Mara’s memories until they left William at the lookout, and then the first question came from Jennifer. “So you have all of Mara’s memories now too?” she asked sympathetically. 

“Not anymore. Not really,” she shook her head. “They’re more like the implanted memories of Audrey’s life. All whispy and fuzzy and I can’t really focus on anything. The bulk of them went with Mara’s consciousness.”

“But you still remember everything you just told us,” Dwight said confused. 

“Not really,” she said with a so-so hand motion. “I remember what I said about them and the ones that I talked about are a little clearer than others just because of that link to my own memories if that makes any sense…”

“It does,” Duke assured her. 

“But that’s about it. I still have a lot of the knowledge part…just like with Audrey’s memories. Kinda like how I know FBI procedure but I can’t remember actually learning it. And some of the skills like the ability to use a gun or in this case…control the Aether, but the actual memories are just…poof.” 

“About the Aether,” Nathan jumped in. “We need to get rid of it. Or at least keep it away from the only person who can use it.”

“Won’t work,” Lexi shook her head. “Remember how William was able to call his Aether made goons back right out of handcuffs and locked interrogation rooms? And how I was able to call it from all over the world when I cured the troubles? It’s connected to me. There is nowhere on this world that I won’t be able to sense it and use it,” she explained. “The only option to get rid of it would be to open Jennifer’s door and toss it in but that’s not an option anymore since William is powerless now and doesn’t have the link to the other world to be able to open it. Not to mention the fact that opening it would let something far worse than any troubles into this world.”

“Says you,” Vince pointed out, not entirely unkindly. He just didn’t like anyone having that kind of power. 

“And me,” Dave piped up. 

“What?” Vince asked in shock looking at his brother. 

Since it wasn’t even an option anymore, he felt safe enough to share. “I was the fourth person we needed,” he admitted, ignoring Vince’s thunderous look and the shocked looks of everyone else. “I /know/ what’s behind that door because I’ve been there.”

“And you didn’t tell us? Tell ME!” Vince asked incredulously. 

“Because I knew you would make me do it anyway and I couldn’t…I just couldn’t…what’s over there…it’s so much worse than you could imagine…facing it again…no. No, I couldn’t,” Dave was almost in a panic attack just from the thought which was enough to convince the others that he was being genuine at least. 

“We’re going to have a serious talk about secrets later on,” Vince said firmly before turning back to Lexi. “That still doesn’t resolve what to do about the Aether.” 

“There’s nothing /to/ do,” Lexi told him. “It’s not like I would ever use it to start troubling people again or anything.”

“But you would use it?” Dwight asked suspiciously. 

“In an emergency…sure. Imagine how helpful it would be to have unkillable bodyguards on hand if we were ever kidnapped or tortured. Or the Cape Rouge was highjacked. Or if the mob comes in and tries to take over the town. There are plenty of uses beyond troubling people.” 

“Still…power corrupts,” Nathan had to point out. 

“Which is why I would only use it if there was no other way,” Lexi told him. At the unsure looks still around the table, she sighed. “Listen…I know better than any of you how powerful and dangerous this stuff is. I’m not dumb enough to go playing with it willy nilly. Even using it for good can go very bad. It’s kinda like nuclear stuff. It can make bombs, but it can also give us energy for lights and everything. Only an idiot would go messing with it if they didn’t have to though and never without the proper precautions.” She knew that it was currently just about reassuring them that she wouldn’t go nuts with it since there was nothing anyone could do about it anyway. 

“I think we would all still feel better if we could keep it in a secure location,” Dwight chimed in. 

“Just because I’m the only person who can really use it doesn’t mean that other people couldn’t make a mess with it. It would be even worse because it would be an uncontrolled mess,” Lexi pointed out. 

“You don’t think we could keep it safe?” Nathan asked. 

“I don’t think you’re taking into account life spans here. I’m immortal remember? Even if you can keep it secret and safe, how can you say what your grandchildren, or their grandchildren or whatever might do with it? Or if you just lock it up somewhere and forget about it, whose to say it won’t be found in a hundred years. Or a thousand,” Lexi pointed out. 

“She has a point,” Jennifer spoke up. 

“And you’re sure it’s safe now?” Vince asked worriedly, conceding the point. 

“I hid it myself. It’s safe,” Duke told them, and no one could argue with that. Duke had made hiding things into an art form. If he didn’t want it found, it wouldn’t be found. 

“So…what do you know about this other world?” Jennifer asked curiously, changing the subject. 

“Not a whole lot of details. I know that they’re a lot more advanced than we are. Immortal, obviously, but not invulnerable. I figured out that you…and apparently Dave too…are what they call halflings. You’re half human. I’m not really sure what all that means though. Sorry.” 

“That’s okay,” Dave told her. “It’s still more than we knew before.” 

“So…I’m guessing this door doesn’t go to that other world? Or were they destroyed by this monster thing too?” Nathan asked. 

“No, the door goes to the void between worlds where the monster lives. The monster is the reason that travel between the worlds was prohibited except for extreme cases,” Lexi told them. 

“But they brought me here. And Dave too I guess,” Jennifer pointed out. 

“Because halflings can’t live on that world. Humans can’t live there either. I’m not sure why. Something about the air there being different or denser or something. Like…we all breathe oxygen, yeah, but other stuff in the air doesn’t like humans. Or half humans. That’s why halflings are so rare. Only the ones who brave the void and sneak over to this world have them.” 

“Hang on…if it’s possible for others from there to sneak over here…what’s to keep them from messing with the Aether?” Dwight asked suddenly worried again. 

“They can’t. That’s something unique to me. The memories are fuzzy of course, but from what I can get…there was some kind of accident when Mara was a kid and she almost died. Her dad had been experimenting with the Aether and used it on her as a last ditch effort, so Mara…this body…/is/ part Aether. It’s why using it comes so easily. He was put to death for his experiments which were obviously way dangerous, so I’m still the only one on either world who can use it.” 

That made them all feel a lot better. One person who was mostly trusted who had access to it was bad enough. If there was a whole world of people who could show up and use it against them would have been a disaster. From there the conversation turned into less an interrogation and more a free-flowing discussion between friends. 

There was a bit of an adjustment period to living in a Haven without the troubles during which Dwight gave up being chief of police and handed it back to Nathan who wasn’t nearly as hated anymore now that the troubles were gone. It helped that the official story that Duke and Lexi insisted on claimed that Nathan was instrumental in getting rid of them for good. They definitely didn’t want all the attention and Nathan needed the goodwill. Lexi was able to just be a bartender without having to run off and help with the troubles all the time and she really started to enjoy her life. Especially since she and Duke were doing even better together without all the added stress. 

Jennifer moved in with Dwight about two months after the troubles ended for good. Granted a big part of the reason Dwight had moved so fast on it was because he didn’t really like Jennifer being roommates with Duke, despite the fact that Duke only slept on the boat a few nights a week, and all but two of those nights was with Lexi. Still, despite the reasons, it got Duke thinking and two weeks later, Lexi was moving out of the apartment and onto the Cape Rouge. Not that she still wasn’t keeping the apartment. It was nice to have a place to go other than the inn or staying with friends for the times when Duke had to make a trip and she didn’t go with him. 

Despite moving in together pretty early, Duke didn’t propose for almost two years. More than a year after Dwight and Jennifer’s wedding where Lexi was maid of honor. Jennifer returned the favor for Lexi once it was finally her turn and Nathan was best man for both couples. Once the troubles were gone, his ex-girlfriend Jess had come back to town and they picked up where they left off and joined the married crew three months after Lexi and Duke’s wedding. It was five years after the wedding before the subject of making Duke immortal came up again though and by then Duke was more than ready to commit to forever. The fact that the bonding used Aether made him nervous, but he trusted Lexi enough to allow it with no more than a token protest.


End file.
